





.V>' 



a'^^' ■% 



"■■s- ^^ 






■^# 



^ 0' 



* v 












,.'^-~' v. 






oo 









A 



v^' 






,0 o 















.1-Jv^ 



•^O 0^ 



. ""^7 






x^^ ^t.. 

,^-; 
■// 



■S-. .A^ 



^'^ 












.--^^ 



<> , 



'^'A 






v^ 



,s -r. 






-. .^ 



aX^'^'^^ 



,0o 









G 0' 



« <?-. 












^' 



A 



'^' 



X^^^. 



^ 



...^ 



c^ 




xV '/^. 



' -? 



^^ -n^ 






.'^- 






\^' 






A^ 



>^. 



■i 






x^^^. 



■i <- 



^^ I- 



*-." ''/', aX^ 



^;r .A-^ 



-^ 4^ 



'J^. 



.0*^ 



•A^^ 



.-^^ 



^, .NX 



^> .^v 






t:f 



^^ 



0^' 






FOR 



OUR BOYS 



A COLLECTION OF 



Original Literary Offerings 



BY POPULAR writers AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



Published and sold 

For the benefit of the " Youths' Directory," of San Francisco, 

A benevolent institution for friendless boys. 



EDITED BY 



AMBROSE P. DIETZ, A. M. 






San Francisco: 

A. L. BANCROFT AND COMPANY. 

1879. 



f- 



T^ 535 



> 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, 

By a. L. BANCROFT & COMPANY, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



TO 

THE CITIZENS OF SAN FRANCISCO, 

WHOSE MUNIFICENXE IS KNOWN THROUGHOUT THE LAND, 

THIS VOLUME 

IS 

Gratefully Dedicated, 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introductory. By the Editor 7 

To the Managers of the Youths' Directory (Poem). 

Lady Georgiana Fullerton 12 

The Youths' Directory. Miss Anna T. Sadlier 14 

Christmas Address. Rev. Dr. Henry W. Bellows 17 

California (Verses). Samuel C. Upham 23 

Work. Hubert H. Bancroft 24 

A True Story. S. Austin AlUhone 39 

A Strange Experience. "Hart Barnard'' [Bentley) 43 

Gone Before (Song). Samuel S. Hall {"BucJcsIcin Sam") 50 

A Sketch from Humble Life. Noah Brooks 51 

Kin and King (Poem). Antoinette L. Brown [Blackwell] 65 

The Cross of the South. Sister Mary Austin Carroll C7 

North and South (Verses). Mrs. L. Virginia French 75 

The May-Flower (Verses). Rev. Dr. P. A . Chadbourne 76 

The Last Days of Charles Lee. John Esten CooTce 77 

Enforcement of Law. Rev. Dr. Howard Crosby 87 

Recompense (Poem). Dora Darmoore 89 

Echoes. Rev. Dr. Charles F. Deems 92 

My Little Sisters (Verses). Francis Alexander Durivage 95 

Letter. — 3Iiss Anna E. DicJcinson 95 

Be Content (Poem). il/r.s. Horace A. Deming 06 

Omnipotence (Verses). Professor Samuel H. Haldeman 97 

A Beautiful Life. Rev. Dr. Benjamin W. Dwight 98 

Letter. — Joaquin Miller {C. H. Miller) 103 

Modern Love-Story. "Eli PerJcins'' {Melville D. Landon) 104 

Letter. — Oliver Wendell Holmes 107 

Our Camp in '64. Robert Ferral 108 



4 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Delusions of Young People. Rev. Dr. Oscar P. Fitzgerald 114 

The Rocky Mountains (Poem). John C. Fremont 121 

The Virgin Mary AND THE Basy (Verses). Mrs. Jessie B. Fremont. 123 

Sowing and Reaping. Dr. Elizabeth J. French 124 

Each and All. Henry George 129 

Consolation (Verses). Maurice F. Egan 137 

An Arabian Tale, Rev. Edward Everett Hale 138 

At Last (Verses). George C. Hurlbut 142 

The World Owes Me a Living. A . S. IlaUidie 143 

Letter. — Edwin Booth 145 

A Millionaire's Dream. Bracebridge Hemyng 146 

Reverie in a Balloon (Verses). Miss Lizzie I. Wise 155 

George and I. Barton Hill 156 

Mining Life at Shasta in 1849. John S. Hittell 161 

The Shadow (Verses). Rev. Dr. M. J. Savage 185 

La Providence (Poem). Victor Hugo 186 

A Mountain-storm. George Jones, the Count Joannes 187 

The Crown of Youth. Professor Henry Kiddle 190 

Three Christmases a Year. Ebenezer Knoiolton 192 

Letter. — Schuyler Colfax 210 

Man's Destiny. Rev. Brother Justin 211 

Kismet (Verses). Thomas J. Vivian 216 

Phillis Wheatley. Benson J. Losslng , 217 

Charity Kindergartens. Mrs. Mary {Horace) Mann 222 

A California Boy Abroad. Master Charles B. Hill 231 

The Liberty of the Press. Philip A. Roach 238 

City and Country Life. Zacli. Montgomery 246 

Two Great Stone-Faces. ''Mrs. Partington'' [P. B. Shillaber) . . . 253 

California Waifs. Rev. Thomas If. Noble 259 

Real China. Frederich Laio Olmsted 263 

A Word of Advice. General Wm. T. Sherman, U. S. A 269 

The Cot by the HIll (Poem). Franic Soule 270 

How DO WE Learn Our Life? (Verses). Charles A. Sumner 271 

KoPHiNs' Boy. Donn Piatt 272 

On The Nile (Poem). Charles Warren Stoddard 281 ' 



CONTENTS. ■ 5 

PAGE 

Letter.— il/. J/. {"BricI:'') Pomeroy 282 

Charles Carroll o? Cvrrolltox. Rev. Dr. 2Iaitheia II. Smith . 283 
An Old Letter. Eestored (Verses). Mrs. Annie A. Pratt 285 

Letter. — 3Iiss Mary Carpenter 290 

A Good and Noble Record. Very Rev. Thomas S. Preston 291 

'Ly.tter— ''Buffalo BilV ( Wm. F. Cody) 29S 

Les Dangers du Tabac. JDr. Ilippohjte A. Depierris 299 

Watchwords of Life (Verses). Rev. Dr. William H. Piatt 303 

The Year of the Church. Mrs. Mary A. Sadlier 309 

As THE Seasons Come and Go (Poem). Albert Pihc 315 

ComjVION Sense. Frederic Saunders , 317 

La Foi, L'Esperance, et la Charitb (Verses). Mme. Mezzara.. 322 

The Fallen Nest. Thom,as ]V. Uanshew 323 

HoAY Lilian Left Us (Poem). Epes Sargent .' 325 

Bibliomania. Alfred E. Whitalcer 329 

Long Tom (Verses). Hector A. Stuart {''Caliban'') 332 

Little Red-Foot. "Olive Thome'' {Mrs. Harriet H. Hiller) , 336 

CoNSTANTiA (Fragment of a Drama). Rev. Dr. Bernard O'Reilly . 338 

Our Idyl (Poem). IVilliam R. Eyster 343 

A Remarkable Career. George Francis Train 348 

Crawford's Orpheus (Verses). Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody 350 

Russians at the Sandwich Islands. Alphonse Pinart 351 

The Dying Boy (Verses). Mrs. Tfm S. Robinson {" Warrington"). 354 

Parliamentary. Henry J. Latham 356 

Gather in the Boys (Verses). Mrs. John McHenry 359 

Bad Boys. Dr. Mary P. Sawtelle 360 

How He Proved Her Affection. Harry Enton 362 

The Bethlehem Song. Rev. Dr. S. Dryden Phelps 367 

Fixedness of Purpose. John Watts de Peyster 370 

What a Strain of Music Caused. Miss Anna T. Sadlier 379 

Yale and Harvard Disagree. President Porter and President Eliot. 402 

The Lesson for the Day. Mrs. Jessie Benton Fremont 403 

A Flight with Ariel (Poem). Albert Pile 409 

A Diamond in the Rough (Poem). Francis S. Smith 421 

Letter. — Monslgnor Thomas J. Capel 424 



USTTRODUCTORY. 



Leading publicists and other •writers on modern social- 
ism, recognize the proposition that in all civilized countries 
the honest, helpless poor are entitled to government aid. 
But the right of the individual to assistance by the state, 
involves a correlation of society, which is organized chiefly 
for the security of its members in their life and property, 
and for their mutual protection. Therefore, society is not 
merely an economical fact, a kind of savings and loan as- 
sociation; it is also a moral fact, a grand fabric of solidarity 
and brotherhood, resting on a basis of equity and reciprocal 
obligations. Some wealsmen, however, maintain that the 
commonwealth owes nothing to its disabled or destitute 
members. Such a doctrine is neither humane nor logical 
in its conclusions. A condition in which the individual 
should never have any benefit to expect from the collective 
store or reserve of the community, and should himself have 
to provide, under all circumstances of adversity, for the 
afflictions and infirmities of his body, would no longer be a 
social condition, but a savage state. We have constituted 
authorities to redress wrongs, and protect the weak against 
oppression; courts of judicature established to administer 
justice and punish evil-doers, and 3^et there should be no 

municipal provision for the dispensation of bread to the 
aged, the indigent and the orphaned, when tr^^ing to help 

themselves? May the homeless poor always rely on the 
continuance of private benevolence to aid them ? 

A good man, whose industry in better days was tributary 
to the public treasury, is now a beggar amid surroundings 
of luxury and opulence. People stand aloof, and say they 



8 INTRODUCTORY. 

are under no obligation to succor liim in his misfortune. 
Wliere, tlien, is the bond, the compact between this man 
and society ? No forfeiture of citizenship has ever placed 
him under the ban of incapacity. Declining to succor him 
in his distress, society -virtually declares him an alien, an 
outlaw, whom no one is bound to respect. It relegates him 
to a state of nature; that is to say, of antagonism, in which 
every impulse of his being, the very instinct of self-preser- 
vation, prompts him to sustain his life b}^ any means. It is 
the duty of political corporations to devise ways and means 
for expenses of general utility: can there be any wiser ex- 
penditure than that which is appropriated to relieve the 
necessities of the workless poor, and thus prevent them 
from resorting to the extremities provoked by absolute 
want ? Nor is there any real danger of abuses proceeding 
from the outlay. Public charity seldom gives more than is 
strictly needed; and it is not in the heart of man, particu- 
larly in this country, to content himself with alms and the 
prospect of an asylum, when he can do better by earning 
something through his own exertions. As the community 
supports criminals while they are undergoing their penalty, 
its refusal to aid the destitute, who are guilty of no offense, 
is certainly an inducement for them to commit crime. If 
the claim to public assistance is denied, and the purloining 
of bread is a violation of law, then the right to beg becomes 
sacred, and must be allow^ed. But in California there are 
ordinances forbidding the practice of mendicity. 

The advocacy of the principle that the hungry and the 
naked and the homeless, including innocent children, have 
no right nor i'lile to demand the necessaries of life, is con- 
trary to the spirit of Christianity, revolting to the feelings 



INTEODUCTORY. 9 

of our common humanity, tending to demoralize society, 
and cause it to relapse into the elements of barbarism. 
J. Stuart Mill, the distinguished English philosopher, holds 
.that Yv^hoever possesses more than he requires of the thiugs 
of this world, cannot make too great a sacrifice to insure 
the existence, or save the life of a fellow-being. 

Deeply impressed with a sense of responsibility in the 
matter, perhaps akin to that which has suggested the fore- 
going desultory reflections, some benevolent gentlemen, a few 
years ago, called a private meeting, at which it was resolved 
to make a concerted effort to rescue aimless boys from the 
temptations, miseries and perils of idleness in San Francisco. 
The immediate result of that effort was the opening of a 
free employment office, under the designation of "The 
Youths' Directory;" an agency which, since that time, re- 
taining its main features as an intelligence bureau, has gradu- 
ally expanded into a well - ajDpointed eleemosynary home 
for friendless lads in quest of work. The public is already 
acquainted with the good accomplished through the in- 
strumentality of this foundation. Among its promoters 
may be mentioned, at random, the names of Archbishop 
Alemany, D. O. Mills. James H. Kelly, John Parrott, James 
C. Flood, Robert B. Woodward, Gustavo Touchard, Lloyd 
Tevis, Joseph A. Donohoe, Frederick L. Castle, Henry 
Barroilhet, W. Lane Booker, John W. Mackay, and Milton 
S. Latham. 

The demands upon the resources and benefits of the 
Youths' Directory have lately so increased, that for lack of 
room and other means, it cannot meet them all, depending, 
as it does, on the fluctuations of private donations, with a 
small subvention from the State. In this emergency, a com- 



10 INTRODUCTORY. 

mittee of prominent citizens was organized some time ago to 
raise funds for the enlargement of the building and its ap- 
purtenances. In addition to other projects, it was decided to 
adopt the scheme of the publication and sale of a collection 
of original literary sketches and essays, solicited from pop- 
ular writers. In response to a circular setting forth this 
object, and addressed to eminent men and women at home 
and abroad, the managers of the Youths' Directory received 
a large quantity of valued manuscripts, kindly prepared for 
this occasion, from which were selected the papers embodied 
in the volume now offered to the patronage of the public. 
The size of this volume being restricted to four hundred 
and twenty-four pages, the editor was constrained to omit a 
variety of meritorious articles, sufficient in bulk to form an- 
other book. 

Henry Ward Beecher, while in this city last fall, prom- 
ised to write something for " Our Boys," but on his return 
to the east, a press of accumulated engagements precluded 
his fulfillment of this promise. "William H. Bussell, LL.D., 
war correspondent of the London Times, writing from Dun- 
robin Castle, in Scotland, says, '^ A contribution from my 
pen will soon be on its way to the Youths' Directory in 
San Francisco." At the time this volume was sent to joress, 
however, the expected favor had not been received. 

With the close of another year, and the ajoproach of the 
gladsome, plentiful season of Christmas holidays; when 
every generous heart is moved to help the needy, this en- 
terprise in behalf of the little wanderers who live in our 
streets, commends itself to the best sympathy and warmest 

support of all our people. 

The Editor. 



INTKODUCTORY. 11 

TO 

THE MANAGERS OF THE YOUTHS' DIRECTORY. 
By Lady Georgiana Fullerton. 

Gladly my feeble pen would write 

A few brief lines, to prove 
My more than common sympathy 

"With your great work of love. 

Oh ! willingly would I pour forth 
The thoughts that on me throng, 

In words as earnest as those thoughts, 
As earnest and as strong. 

No other aim, no other deed, 

Of all those God has blest, 
So deep and keen an interest 

Awakens in my breast. 

As this oat-stretching of the hand 

To guide, guard, and upraise 
Young men and maidens on their way 

Through life's entangled maze. 

Can there be nobler ^YOi'k on earth. 

Than patiently to strive 
A youthful soul to save from ruin, 

And teach it how to live ? 

Not as a felon doomed to shame, 

Or passion's lawless slave, 
But as a creature God has made, 

And Jesus died to save. 



12 INTRODUCTOEY. 

To stay the downward course of one 

Nearing a fatal brink; 
To lend support on life's rougli sea, 

To one about to sink; 

To shield tlie yet imbroken flower, 
Pure and unspotted still. 

From fading in the poisoned air 
Seducin«' arts instill; 



'D 



Such are your tasks, and each day brings 

Its Tneed of hope and fear: 
Eternity will reap the fruit 

You sow in labour here. 

The name of your fair city sounds 

Like music in my ears; 
It speaks of olden times, amidst 

A new world's active years. 

Men talk of your great wealth, your mines, 

Your streams of golden ore. 
And all the gifts of nature, flung 

On San Francisco's shore. 

But on your coasts St. Francis lays 

A higher, holier spell, 
And you, the friends of helpless youth, 

Act up to it full well. 

Oh ! may you long pursue these ends. 
Long may your work expand! 

Like some great tree, strike deep its roots, 
And shelter the whole land! 



21, Cliapd- Street, London, 

October 29, 1878. 



INTRODUCTORY. 13 



THE YOUTHS' DIKECTORY. 

FpvEE beds, free meals, and free employment for destitute 
boys seeking -work — No adverse discrimination between 
applicants on account of difference in matters of religious 
belief. Such are the distinguishing features of the "Youths' 
Directory." And what does this phrase mean? It means 
that souls are to be rescued from perdition, hearts to be 
made susce^^tible of moral training, and wandering feet 
turned into the right path. In a word, it means that 
countless vagrants and vagabonds such as infest the lanes 
and by-ways of a great city, who fill the prisons, and who 
too often end upon the gallows, or in the cell of condemned 
criminals, are yearly turned out from this institution good 
citizens, and good Christians of whatsoever creed they pro- 
fess. This establishment was opened in November, 1874. 
The report Avhich bears date the first of November, 1878, 
states that : 

"Twelve thousand two hundred and one boys, aged from ten to 
twenty-one, of all races and creeds, have been placed in service; that is 
to say, four thousand nine hundred and fifteen in town, and seven thou- 
sand two hundred and eighty-six in the country, since the first of Xo- 
vember, 1874. During that time, also, four hundred and eighty-six 
men, five hundred and ten women, and eight hundred and ninety-eight 
young girls have incidentally been supplied with situations; thus mak- 
ing a total of fourteen thousand and ninety-five persons •na'Iio have ob- 
tained employment in the last four years through the agencj' of this 
bureau. From factories, shops, stores, farms, and other places of in- 
dustry throughout the State, we often receive letters commendatory of 
the youthful toilers sent out from this ofiice. Many destitute families 
in its neighborhood are helped with daily bread from our humble pantry, 
while quantities of cast-off clothing, and other articles of wearing apparel 
kindly presented by friends, are distributed among the ragged M-aifs and 
strays under our care. The Home of the Youths' Directory is a tem- 
porary shelter for little wanderers, until suitable openings are found for 
their services. The benefits of the refectory, dormitory, and intelli- 
gence bureau are free to all, and maintained by voluntary contributions 
from the citizens of San Francisco." 



14 INTEODUCTORY. 

Sucli tlie character and aims of this institution to which 
sve would now call attention. "We have before us testimo- 
nials from all the principal jjapers of California and other 
parts, attesting the complete success with which the under- 
taking' has so far met. We have also letters from eminent 
men, showing their high appreciation of this noble object. 
All unite in congratulating the management on their choice 
of Mr. Dietz as director of the institution. This gentle- 
man was Assistant-Secretary of Legation under Minister 
Mason, at Paris, and subsequently professor of languages 
in the college of St. Ignatius, in San Francisco. He is 
qualified by his acquirements, for the post which he fills, 
and has proved himself indefatigable in promoting the good 
work. "With what abundant success his efforts have been 
crowned, we have already seen in the numbers of homeless 
youths provided with shelter or employment. Much has 
been done, much is still to do; but let us inquire how all 
this has been or is to be accomplished. Simply and solely 
by the generosity of the public. We find it recorded that 
the institution subsists on less than one hundred dollars a 
month. 

Where can we find a parallel ? So much good accom- 
plished, and on so extensive a scale, with so little means! 
An earnest appeal is therefore made in behalf of this 
noble charity. Whose heart will not be touched by the 
suffering which this work alone can alleviate? Who can 
fail to see all the evident advantage which such an in- 
stitution must be to California, and to society in general ? 
And who that looks with the eye of faith, can fail to be- 
hold, afar off, perchance — ay, far as the country and the 
city of the New Jerusalem, whither Ave are all tending — the 
reward exceeding great, which shall be the portion of those 
who contribute, in the smallest degree, to such a cause? 
Even in this world shall they receive a recompense a hun- 
dredfold. 

A Christmas volume entitled " For Our Boys," is now in 



INTRODUCTORY. 



15 



course of preparation. It will include sketches by em- 
inent authors, anrl is to be published and sold for the bene- 
fit of the Youths' Directory. "We cannot too urgently rec- 
ommend this forthcoming book to the notice of the public, 
and to their generous support and sympath}^ In San 
Francisco, so famous for its benevolence, let us hope that 
many thousand copies of the work may be sold. May it be 
very widely circulated in every city of the Union, so that 
its sale may realize a sum which shall be employed for the 
salvation of countless unfortunates. The funds of the in- 
stitution are very low, and the charitable assistance of 
persons of all classes and creeds is earnestly solicited. It 
is not a question of Protestant or Catholic, Jew or Gentile, 
but of all who are homeless, friendless, destitute and in 
danger of perishing, either morally or physically. Thoso 
who can send donations of any kind, may direct the same to 
Mr. Ambrose P. Dietz, director and superintendent, House 
of Eeception, 1417 Howard street, San Francisco, Califor- 
nia- The smallest offerings will be thankfully received, 
and let those who cannot make such offerings, purchase at 
least one copy of the book, and in that way participate in the 
good work, and merit the blessing of Him who said: " In- 
asmuch as ye have done it unto one of these my least 
brethren, ye have done it unto Me. 

Anna T. Saduer. 
New YorlCf November, 1878. 



FOR 



OUE BOYS. 



CHEISTMAS ADDEESS TO GIELS AND BOYS. 

By Rev. Dp.. Henry W. Bellows. 

Theke have always been claildren in tlie world; and 
I suppose they have always been happy in their fresh 
spirits and young bodies. Yet it is worth while to 
inquire how children lived and thought, before the 
blessed day when Jesus Christ came into the world and 
made Christmas. 

Let ns, then, go back and imagine the children meet- 
ing, if there ever were any such meetings in those days, 
in the shadow of some Greek temple, and ask ourselves 
what they would be thinking about. The sky was al- 
ways beautiful; they must have looked up into it, and 
must sometimes have said, "Who made it ? " And if 
their parents heard them they must have replied, *' Ju- 
piter or Saturn." '^Well, who is Jupiter?" "Oh, Jupiter 
is the god of all the gods; he lives on Olympus, eats 
banquets, quarrels with Neptune and Vulcan, and espec- 
ially with Juno and Yenus. He is a petulant, self-in- 
dulgent being who is up to all sorts of tricks, jokes 
and sp(n'ts, and particularly fond of disgracing himself." 
"And does he care for us; and can we love and honor 
him?" "Oh, we must all honor the gods, because they 
are very powerful and can do us great harm if we neg- 
lect any of their sacrifices." 
2 



18 CHRISTMAS ADDRESS. 

''Do you think the children would be very well 
satisfied, or very much improved and sobered and 
blessed by such an account ? And if one of their 
playmates or their mother and fatlier died, and the 
children should ask, "what has become of them?" 
They would have to be told that they had gone down to 
the under-world, to cross the river Styx, with old Charon 
for boatman, and to wander about as shades, longing 
for the light of the sun; or perhaps that there was no 
hope that they lived at all. If children felt dissatisfied 
with this and said, "Are there no priests or wise men 
who know anything about God, or the future, better than 
this?" They might have been directed to the temples, 
and there the sooth-sayers and aiigurs might have said: 
"Well, we will inspect the entrails of beasts or watch 
the flight of the birds, and see whether they cannot tell 
us something about what the gods wish." 

"But is there no holy book where we can turn and 
read for ourselves what the gods wish?" "No," they 
would say, " we have some scrolls from the Sibyls and 
some oracles at Delphi, but nothing we can put into 
your hands." 

"But is there no great and holy teacher, whom you 
love and revere, who has authority to answer our ques- 
tions?" "Alas! we had a wise man, called Socrates, 
who was good and great; but he had a very cross wife, 
and Avas fond of banquets and banter. When anybody 
asked him anything, his way was to ask back so many 
questions of his own that everybody went away, think- 
ing 'what a fool I am, and how little the wisest know 
about anything!" He was the best they had, but the 
people felt so angry with his wisdom that tliey made 
him drink hemlock and put him to death. I don't thick 
the children could have had much comfort in those day3 



CHRISTMAS ADDRESS. 19 

out of their religion. The best thing they could do was 
to forget it and all thoughts about Jupiter or the future 
world, and try to make the most they could out of the 
pleasures they found here. I dare say there were some 
children then who felt the awful voice of conscience in 
their hearts^ and were terrified with its accents; who said 
bravely, "Well, Jupiter doesn't care about us, and 
there is no use in asking any questions about what is to 
become of us; but still, duty aod virtue are and must be 
sacred things, and it is better to follow them even into 
danger and death, than to follow pleasure and vice into 
success, power and ease." It was this exceptional feel- 
ing that kept religion alive in those dark, ignorant 
heathen times. But the Jewish boys, during all this time, 
were having a much better instruction. They were 
carefully brought up, even the richest of them, to know 
some trade and useful handicraft; for their great prophet 
Moses, and their wise men who wrote psalms and pro- 
verbs, had taught them that idleness and dependence 
were disgraceful. They, alas! did not have any clear 
teaching about immortality, but they had glorious teach- 
ing about God. And what a different God it is from 
Jove or Saturn! — a holy God, who showed no weak hu- 
man passions; the God of the good Abraham, the wise 
Moses, the excellent young Samuel, and the fine j'oung 
King Josiah; the God who loves righteousness and ad- 
ministers justice. And He had a great servant, who 
was in place of Christ to them, who wrote the Tables of 
the Law, and was just, noble, meek and holy, — Moses! 
But he was not so wise as not to think God loved sacri- 
fices of oxen and goats; not so wise as not to teach re- 
venge and hatred of enemies — an eye for an eye and a 
tooth for a tooth; not so wise as to know that there was 
any future abode for the departed, or any means but 



20 CHRISTMAS ADDRESS. 

that of violence and war to conquer the cause of true 
religion. You know, as you read your Old Testament, 
how the Jews pursued and slew their enemies, and how 
they despised all other nations, and how they thought 
their God a partial God, who loved them, but cared 
nothing for those who were not Jews too. . 

Do yoa wonder, dear children, that the world keeps 
Christmas! Think what happened then. A child was 
born of humble parents at Bethlehem, who was destined 
to grow up so full of wisdom, light and knowledge of 
God, that his mother, even in his infancy, felt him to 
be not so much her child as God's son. When twelve 
years old he could talk with the great Rabbis in the 
Temple, and ask questions that confounded them. 
Though the son of a carpenter, and brought up without 
any such schooling in science and literature as every 
poor boy in America can have at any common school, 
he was so taught by God's spirit, that he saw and heard 
and knew things about his Father's will and character, 
and about immortality and the future life, that all the 
sages and saints, either in Jadea or Egypt, Greece or 
Home, had never been able to guess, much less to know 
them. And what he knew of old, he lived and taught 
by his example, and communicated to holy but humble 
followers who wrote it down in the Gospels. In proof 
of his faith in God's will and mercy, and in immor- 
tality, he willingly died to show that life is not a thing 
of flesh and blood, but of the spirit and heart and soul; 
and that God is to be obeyed and submitted to as a 
Father, even though His Providence comes as through 
suffering and darkness and death. 

Think what this dear, blessed Master, this holy child 
and exalted Christ, has done for the world! Christmas- 
day we shall be rejoicing in his birth; the bells will be 



CHRISTMAS ADDEESS. 21 

ringing and the chimes singing the angels' song, and 
you will be giving and receiving gifts in token of the 
great gift that God gave us on that Christmas morning 
when His Son came into the world. And just a week 
afterward you will be keeping the New Tear, and it will 
be the year of our Lord 1879, the date of the Christian 
era. It was a new time, the world began over again 
when Jesus came; for he made our heavenly father to 
be clearly known. No more any necessity of asking 
who God is or what God is ! He is the Perfect, the All- 
good, the All-wise, the All-merciful, the All-father ! He 
is the God and Father of the dear and gentle, the pure 
and sinless Jesus. 

You need not go out and question the heaven and the 
earth, the soothsayers and augurs, to know who made 
you, and in whose Providence you live 1 You have only 
to go and look into the face of the dear Master who 
loved to take little children up in his arms and say, 
*' of such is the kingdom of Heaven," to know that the 
Father of such a Son, whom he loves so perfectly, and 
trusts so completely, is a holy, kind, merciful, and all- 
powerful Being, whose character and purposes are 
wholly to be loved and adored. You need not be ask- 
ing the earth what she does with the poor, faded wreck 
of the body when it is laid in her bosom. She cannot 
answer! But Jesus says, *'I am the Resurrection and 
the Life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, 
yet shall he live." He has abolished death and opened 
Heaven, and lifted our hearts and faith to all the glori- 
ous hopes that reach beyond time and this world. 
Think what his precepts and spirit have made the world 
compared with what it once was! We know what Wash- 
ington, and Franklin, and Adams did to make our coun- 
try free and prosperous, and what great patriots and 



22 CHRISTMAS ADDRESS. 

heroes Lave done for other countries; what we owe to 
the great men that invented printing, discovered Amer- 
ica, found out the force of steam, and first created rail- 
roads and telegraphs. But what are even those who 
measured the distance of the sun from the earth, or 
united the hemisphere by steam navigation and wires, to 
Him who first bound God and man in friendship; filled 
up the awful gulf of death; said to the poor, You are 
just as dear to God as the rich; said to Virtue, afraid 
and wavering, Do right, and God will reward you, 
though you die on a cross; taught men to love their 
enemies, made home sacred by abolishing polygamy, 
told the nations they are all one before God; and all 
the races, black, w^iite and red, *'Ye are all of one 
blood;" spoke to children, saying, You are the heirs of 
immortality; stood by the bier and said, "She is not 
dead, but sleepeth;" and "Arise, and go to your mother." 
Ah! my dear children, you have a thousand reasons 
you do not yet know, and perhaps a thousand more I 
can not yet understand myself, but shall in eternity, for 
keeping Christmas. The w^orld will yet be full of 
Christmas wreaths, and Christmas gifts, and Christmas 
chimes; and some day there will be one grand Christ- 
mas tree, hung over with millions of precious gifts — 
education, justice, equality, mercy, etc., — broken can- 
non and swords hanging useless uj)on its boughs; 
treaties of peace and love among all the nations; all 
the idols and sacrifices of the heathen placed as curious 
relics of departed ignorance in its shade, and the whole 
world joining hands, dancing around it in joy and 
brotherly love; all converted to God, all knowing Jesus 
in his beauty, from the least to the greatest; the chil- 
dren all obeying their parents and honoring their teach- 
ers, keeping their lips from soil and their hands from 



CALIFOKNIA. 23 

stain; all able to look upon death without a shudder; 
all ceasing to- be afraid of ghosts and goblins in the 
dark; all loving the light of truth and the voice of duty, 
and thinking it a joy and a privilege to be good and 
useful. What a blessed Christmas it will be, when 
Jesus' spirit has become the law of the whole earth; 
when sin, and unbelief, and ignorance of God and duty 
are banished in the victory of his holy and heavenly 
testimony! 



CALIFOENIA. 

By Samuel 0. Upham. 

Thy city and harbor, proud golden-gemmed Queen, 
Are rivaled by none the world has e'er seen; 
Thy merchants and bankers, like Crcesus of old. 
Have locked in their coffers their millions untold. 
The school-house and college, like beacon-lights stand, 
In vale and on hill-top, the pride of thy land; 
Still, we, in tby closet two skeletons see — 
The vagabond "Hoodlum," and " Heathen Chinee." 

Hamlets like magic to large cities have grown, 
The rancliero has reaped the grain he has sown. 
The vine and the fig tree are laden with fruit. 
And the breezes blow soft as the tones of the lute; 
The orauge tree blossoms and fruits in the vale, 
The date and pomegranate, 'mid saud and the shale. 
The filbert and almond, and manna of yore, 
All abound in the land that we love and adore. 



24 WORK. 

WOKK. 

By Hubert H. Bancroft. 

Get leave to work 
In this world, 'tis the best you get at all; 
For God, in cursing, gives us better gifts 
Than men in benediction. God says "Sweat 
For foreheads;" men say "crowns;'* and so we are crowned, 
Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel 
Which snaps with a secret sping. Get work; get work; 
Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get. 

Mrs. Browning. 

The necessity to labor, we have been told, is an evil, 
the first and sum of evils, offspring of tbe primal 
curse, spawn of Adamic transgression, born of the ser- 
pent which envenoms all, which cradles humanity in 
thistles and thorns, and clothes us in galling fetters to 
be worn midst sorrow and sweat until the body returns 
to dust. It is the severest punishment Divine vengeance 
can conjure for the disobedient, the heaviest infliction 
Almighty power may lay upon the seed of woman for 
her sin of curiosity. And the curse of curses, Cain's 
curse, was that he should labor and reap no reward. 

These precepts accord with our earliest impressions 
of labor. The child abhors his task. It is neither af- 
fection, food, nor any good thing; and instinctively he 
feels that it is not. It is a penalty he must pay, not 
having committed any crime; a slavery he must under- 
go, though freeborn. Even brutes blush and hang 
their heads, being harnessed to man's infelicities. 

Enjoyment alone, the creatures of a beneficent Creator 
claim as their birthright. Therefore call it pleasure 
and the exercise is easy; whereas pleasure itself is pain- 
ful if done as duty. In childhood, how much of activity 
and fatigue we laughingly undergo in the name of fun; 



WORK. 25 

Low intolerably dull and spirit-crusliiDg the labor-lesson 
our kiud parent gives us to learn. To liim at play the 
winter has no cold, nor is the longest, hottest summer's 
day wearisome; but over the light unfinished task the 
songs of birds strike heavily upon the ear, the fresh 
fragrant breath of heaven is hateful, and the joyful sun's 
rays stinging scorpions. 

And in grown-up children we see drawn the same dis- 
tinctions. With what nervous delight the delicate 
young woman dances the dark hours through, when, 
were those midnight whirls and ambles necessary or 
useful, how terrible the infliction. Happy as a beaver 
the 3^oung man rises before day to a ten-mile tramp 
over the hills for a possible shot at a deer, when, did his 
breakfast every morning depend upon such early and 
severe exertion, better die at once than keep up life at 
such a cost. Even old prosaic practical men and hum- 
drum women, cheerful as cackling barn-fowls, every 
summer leave their home comforts, their clean carpets 
and soft beds, their carriage and garden and well-stored 
larder and flyless parlor and cool verandah, and go into 
voluntary exile, become savage, or at least sylvan, in 
their- dust-hole under the chaparral or buckeye, eat- 
ing indigestible food, breathing the blistering air, and 
sweltering through the shelterless day, only at night to 
stretch themselves with no small show of satisfaction 
upon the flea-and-fever-breediug earth, there to wait the 
slow approach of sleep, while the mosquito's soft so- 
prano becomes lost in the loud contralto of the sympa- 
thetic frog, — when, were it all done from necessity, what 
a wail would go heavenward over the bitterness of their 
lot! So by the simple name of sport do we sweeten the 
very dregs of drudgery. 

Not only does the labor we delight in physic pain, 



26 WORK. 

but such effort ceases to he> labor in the sense here 
■used; that is, as a burden to be borne, a means to an 
end. Pleasures pall, and men are sometimes driven to 
do things useful through sheer ennui; but activity then 
becomes delightful, and the necessity being removed, 
comes not under the curse, and only shows that there 
are some whom wealth and luxury cannot wholly debase. 

In all industry, in commerce, agriculture, and manu- 
factures; in mechanical or intellectual pursuits; in edu- 
cation and religion, by all mankind throughout all ages, 
it seems to have been tacitly implied that, however ben- 
eficial the result of labor, work per se is a curse. It is 
something to be deplored; something to be endured, re- 
warded; and it is performed, for the most part, in the 
hope and endeavor of ultimate relief from it. Who has 
not this hope, and what would life be without it? How 
often we hear it said, When I have so much money, when 
my new house is built, my farm paid for, my sons edu- 
cated, my daughters settled, I Avill no longer labor at 
this rate; I will rest, I will fling care to the winds, re- 
lease brain nerves and muscles from their life-long ten- 
sion, take a square look upward and outward, and live 
a little before I die. But alas ! how seldom is this 
effected; or if it be, how laborious the laborless waiting 
for death ! 

It seems absurd to carry the question further, whether 
the necessity to labor is regarded as an evil; and yet I 
wish it clearl}^ understood in all its practical as well as 
theoretical bearings, and the fact admitted. 

Why does one shoulder a shovel, and another a hod, 
and early march to melancholy exercise, when a compan- 
ionable pipe at the corner grocery is so much preferred? 
The merchant who asserts that he buys and sells merely 
for pastime or accommodation, and without regard to 



woke;. 27 

profit, is not believed. Nothing is sooner suspected in 
a stranger tban a display of disinterested benevolence. 
To what end does the pioneer attempt to plant a home 
in the forest? Is it the delight experienced in swinging 
an as and seeing the chips fiy ? He clears the ground, 
and plows and plants; is it pleasure alone that 
prompts this struggle with nature, or is it done in the 
hope of presently resting from oppressive toil ? Will 
any one wanting a house to shelter his family say to 
himself. It is better for me to build that house than 
that I should be saved the trouble. Will any one want- 
ing a fortune which shall give him rest for the remain- 
der of his life, which shall give him leisure for the 
pursuit of refining arts and pleasures, which shall give 
him the means of making happy those he loves, of giv- 
ing to the poor, of building schools and cliwrches, — 
will he say. Better for me to rack my brain and ply my 
fingers early in the morning and late into the night, day 
after day for twenty or forty years, meanwhile keepiug 
my feet to the treadmill, my eyes to the click and clap- 
trap of money-making, until with old age is frozen 
every generous impulse; shutting forever from my un- 
derstanding all the God-given beauties and benefits 
that haDg like a starry canopy above my head, to the 
very hemming of my horizon; will he say, Better for me 
to endure all this, sacrifice all this, and that, too, while 
attended by a hundred necessaiy risks and ventures, 
any one of which may wreck all, than to find it ready 
made, with a life-time in which to enjoy it. 

Or if his soul hungers for the higher good; if, indif- 
ferent to wealth and social distinction, thoughts of the 
great What, and Whence, and Whither, urge him to a 
more defined understanding of his being and surround- 
ings; and if, without the laborious accumulating and 



28 WOEK. 

analyzing of experiences, without days of nervous in> 
yestigating and long nights of mental strain, scores 
of years of the severest study might be overleaped, and 
the youth know as the sage, — would he not be a dolt, 
an idiot, to refuse any Aladdin-lamp assistance on the 
ground that the sole travail of knowledge was itself a 
blessing, the intellectual and moral faculties thus 
aroused, exercised, and developed, which were other- 
wise non-existent or dormant, being more beneficial 
than Minerva-births or other spontaneous results? 

This daily dead-lift of labor that walls every avenue 
of progress, that hangs like Dantean darkness over 
every effort of aspiring intelligence, that lays inex- 
orably its burden upon the shoulder alike of artisan 
and clerk, of merchant and manufacturer, of student 
and professor, of lawyer, doctor and preacher, ^ — will 
any one say that it is a good thing, something in and of 
itself to be desired ? 

In a word, is not labor regarded by mankind gener- 
ally, if not an absolute curse, yet less a blessing than 
the absence of its necessity? 

Most assuredly. 

And yet mankind are wrong. Either the Creator is 
a merciless tyrant, and creation a botch, or this great 
agony of our existence is a blessing. 

I know that one step farther carries our investigation 
beyond its depth; and I do. not purpose speculation. I 
wish to confine myself to the plainest, simplest view of 
the case, the proximate and practical parts of these life- 
embracing anomalies being more than sufficient to oc- 
cupy all our attention in this world. I will remark, 
however, in passing, that to those who care to see the 
truth, the clearest of all propositions is that there can- 
not exist in nature two absolute and ultimate oppugnant 



WORK. 29 

forces; there cannot exist in reason, or sane superstition, 
within the confines of one universe, two omnipotences. 
Hence, though we observe here attraction and repulsion, 
we must conchide that eternal equilibrium is the only 
true and living force; though we see life and death, and 
pain and pleasure, we must conclude either that there 
is no such thing as absolute and ultimate good, or that 
there is no such thing as absolute and ultimate evil. 
Therefore that which we call evil is not evil, or that 
which we call good is not good. But this abstract and 
metaphysical view of the question I touch as one grop- 
ing in the dark touches a hot stove, only to avoid it. 
Until the horizon of our intelligence uplifts and opens 
into a clearer Beyond, let the Here and Now chiefly 
occupy our thoughts. 

Here and now, I say then, it is in work itself, rather 
than in the accomplished result, that the true benefit of 
labor lies. We have been wrongly taught; nor is this 
the only instance wherein our teachers need instructing. 

Of all laws that environ us, and they are legion, not 
one is more palpable than that by the exercise of organs 
and faculties alone they develop. In this, science, phi- 
losophy, religion, and common sense agree. It is the 
pivot upon which all progress turns, the central princi- 
ple alike in universal evolution and in individual devel- 
opment. Organs and organisms improve according to 
use. The blacksmith does not acquire strength to swing 
his hammer by running foot races, nor does the logician 
become proficient in subtle reasoning by counting 
money or selling bacon. Bind a limb and it withers; 
put out one eye, and the other performs the work of 
two. Mind and muscle alike grow, improve, acquire 
strength and elasticity, only by exercise. Little is ex- 
pected of the man who in youth was never sent to school 



30 WOBK. 

or required to work. So obvious is this that it is hardly 
worth discussiug; and yet this fact proved, all is proved, 
for we all prefer our physique and faculties strong and 
Avell-developed, rather than shriveled or decayed. We 
all agree that so long as we are a part of this planet it is 
better to be alive than dead. How much happier, more 
active and intelligent, are the aged who keep alive their 
limbs and faculties by using them, than those who give 
up exercise and thereby sink into early dotage. 

True, it may be said that any benefit derived from 
work is a result; that the skill, strength, and consequent 
development arising from labor are as much the results 
of labor as the article manufactured or the price paid. But 
the word result I use here only in its more general sense, 
and as ai)plied to the direct and material results rather 
than to the effort, agency, or exercise, which, though 
certainly results in one sense, yet for the purpose of 
this article I put in direct opposition to common materia], 
effect. 

We all know what are his chances for happiness who 
retires, without intellectual resources, from a business 
in which he has long been engaged. A potato-patch 
and hoe are paradise beside such a situation. Often 
the weary-brained city man thinks elj^sium were found 
if only he might stretch himself under his own oak-tree 
in the country; but worse than protested notes soon be- 
comes this nauseating dolce far niente. On the other 
hand, for a lazy or brainless man, having neither ideas 
nor energy, an inactive life with a competency is para- 
dise, though swine were his companions. 

Narrowing the subject yet closer, let us apply our 
proof to the questions asked a moment ago. 

That the child dislikes it, does not make labor bene- 
ficial; but that disliking he is forced to perform it 



WORK. 31 

shows that, by the experienced who have his true inter- 
ests at heart, it is deemed essential to his well-being. 
That men and women pretend to a greater delight in 
recreation than in application proves nothing, but only 
shows that they regard labor a necessary evil. That 
pleasures pall does not prove work better than pastime, 
but only that in pleasure we must not seek the highest 
earthly good. Coming to the sand-shoveler and the 
hod-carrier, it seems somewhat questionable whether 
the exercise to their already labor-stiffened limbs is 
preferable to the two dollars a day upon which the com- 
fort of the family depends. But let it not be under- 
stood that I object to the reward, or imagine that there 
ever could be such a condition of affairs as that men 
should work without pay or return, and for the mere 
benefit of work. Tet in this extreme case of a common 
day-laborer, I think the rule holds good. Better, I say, 
he should have fair wages and so support his family, but 
in the absence of any just compensation, better to work 
for nothing and keep up a good digestion, were there 
anything in him to digest, than to spend money spoiling 
it at the ale-house, or even that he should lie idle 
and rust. The work then is better than the pay, 
not because the pay is not good, but because in 
absolute idleness the laboring class would be worse 
than swine, and unfit to live. Behold humanity breed- 
ing like maggots upon the putridity of effortless exist- 
ence! There is nothing in Stygian pools so low, so 
horribly repulsive. Such a state, in which intellect or 
even instinct were necessarily absent, would be savag- 
ism so pluralized and beastliness so besotted as were 
impossible for the mind of man to conceive. 

So it is with the merchant, the pioneer, the student; 
I would the material results were ten times what they 



32 WORK. 

are; but even in the absence of these, did work stop, 
decay would ensue. In regard to the house and fortune 
illustrations; is not the ability to build houses and ac- 
quire fortunes preferable to the house and fortune them- 
selves ? For the ability being present, the object may 
be attained, but in the absence of ability, with the loss 
of fortune the state of the individual is deplorable in- 
deed. 

Results die; agencies are eternal. Merit lies not in 
possession, but in capability. In measuring a man, the 
wise ask not what has he, but what can he do? If labor 
is not better than the reward, then life is a sad failure; 
for after a life-time of labor, of all that we acquire we 
can carry nothing with us out of the world. 

Look at those who live, so to say, without work. 
There are first the savages, who nationally approach the 
nearest possible this state. They pluck fruit and eat it; 
skin beasts and clothe themselves, or else go naked. 
Though even this requires some exertion it is not exactly 
what we call labor. But the very first movement toward 
another state is work. Give them the result of labor 
without end and you do not change them. Build a city 
in the wilderness and house the savages, that does not 
civilize them. Clothe them in broadcloth, they are not 
gentlemen; buy them books, they are not learned; build 
them temples, they are not thereby worshippers of the 
true God. 

Pass at once to the opposite extreme, to the super- 
civilized, those favored of fortune, as the stupid and 
ignorant call them, born to everything earth can give. 
They indeed have their garments made ready, their 
houses built for them, their destiny, I might almost say, 
carved by circumstances before they were born. With- 
out effort they enter upon the good things of life to en- 



WORK. 33 

joy tliem. Are these the blessed of this world ? By no 
means. 

Next to being born blind or deaf, or otherwise de- 
formed or diseased, the greatest calamity that can hap- 
pen one is to be born rich; the greatest calamity, 
because the chances are a hundred to one that, beside 
becoming thereby enervated in body and mind, such a 
person, when pricked by those adversities which sooner 
or later befall, will collapse like a blown bladder. To 
the wealthy of California was given one blessing forever 
denied their children. They were born poor; they were 
the makers of their money, and that in itself implies 
some merit, howsoever unintellectual they were satisfied 
to remain, or howsoever immoral some of them may 
have become in the operation. For a passionate pur- 
suit of wealth is in itself debasing; but passionate 
progress does not long continue. Not less than the un- 
successful, the fortunate in the struggle for wealth die; 
and the generation following, lacking, peradventure, the 
money-grasping mania, will not exert itself as did its 
predecessor; and to every five hundred who ride their 
father's fast horses to the devil, perhaps five turn their 
attention to ennobling pastimes. 

The second and succeeding generations of the wealthy 
of this world, as a class, move in an atmosphere of sub- 
limated savagism. Some few ape learning and affect 
the higher good, but not many willingly forego pleas- 
ures within their grasp for a life of refining toil. Let 
us hope, however, for the best, for intellectual revival 
always follows a long period of material prosperity. 
Surfeited of gold even Midas remembers his mind, and 
turns to it for some new enjoyment. In all the abnor- 
mities of moral economy, there is none so productive of 
evil as this laborless inheriting of the results of labor. 



34 WORK. 

Nature nowliere so debases herself; the vine-root and 
the flower-stalk, workers with the invisible in life's 
great laboratory, in the subtle chemistry of their own 
secret processes, bring from the same soil, each after 
its kind, painted and perfumed fruits and flowers, which 
are nature's riches. Wealth is the product of labor ap- 
plied to natural objects, and to be of benefit to the 
individual must grow from his own personal efforts. 
The productiveness of a community depends upon the 
knowledge and skill of its members, rather than upon 
natural advantac^es. 

Now it requires no great keenness of observation, 
whatever your creed or ethical code may be as to caus- 
ations and consequences, to see that nature is our mas- 
ter, that she rules us with an iron hand, by unalterable 
laws, to which it behooves us humbly to conform the 
conduct of our lives. Nature is inexorable. Obey her, 
and she is kind; throw off allegiance, and she is merci- 
lessly cruel. Whether you know, or do not care to 
know, or forget, break one of the least of her laws and 
you suffer, and in proportion to the sin. Only the sav- 
age sees smiles and frowns in nature; the philosopher 
fails to discover w^herein the slightest partiality has 
ever been shown a votary, the slightest sentiment, or 
favoritism, or interposition, or waverings under suppli- 
cations. Kain falls upon the just and the unjust; fire 
burns God's martyrs as surely as Satan's servant. If I 
overreach the precipice too far in my effort to rescue a 
fellow-being, I am dashed in pieces as surely as if I fall 
in attempting revenge upon an enemy. 

In nature man finds his countei'part; she is our great 
example and teacher. If you would know the price of 
happiness, go to nature; she will spread before you a 
true catalogue of rewards and punishments. To the 



WORK. 35 

present codes of morality, creeds are bj no means es- 
sential. Even religion is not foolish enough to ask of 
man labor or sacrifice for nothing; and nature asks no 
more. Of nature and the sublimest selfishness the high- 
est ethics are built. 

How much more foolish then is man than beasts, be- 
ing part of nature, so entirely to ignore nature in his 
searches for happiness, so little to esteem his material 
nature, his intellectual nature, his spiritual nature; and 
spend all these natural powers, through which alone he 
may receive blessing, happiness, and peace, npon art, 
artifice, cultivation, cunning, and deceit. 

Before labor in itself ceases to be beneficial, the whole 
economy of nature must change. The inherent energy 
of man is significant of his laborious destiny. So nature 
groans under redundant energy, with here and there 
convulsive throes. Surrounding ns is a universe seek- 
ing rest. This seeking is the normal condition of affairs; 
for rest only brings a desire for fresh activity. Bodies 
in motion labor to be quiet; bodies at rest labor to bo 
in motion. So labor is the normal condition of man, 
both his will and his necessity. If he wills not to labor, 
necessity drives him to it; if necessity is absent the 
spirit of good or the demon of evil stirs him to the ac- 
complishment of he knows not what. Absolute rest 
once found, and chaos were come again. Activity is 
nature's rest, God's rest, and man's only rest. What is 
absolute repose but death? And even that most dread 
of quietudes cannot rest for rotting. 

By work the universe is, and man. Nature hinges on 
it; by it worlds are whirled and held in place, winds 
blow, and the fertilizing moisture is lifted from the 
ocean and dropped upon the hills; by it instinct is and 
intellect, mind is made, and soul implanted; by it grass 



36 WORK. 

grows, flowers bloom, and tlie sunbeam enters my win- 
dow, — else how without work should it have come so 
far to greet me. 

If then to labor is nature's mandate, the reward being 
no less certain if I obey than the punishment is sure if 
I fail, what folly for me to look for a miracle in my be- 
half, and expect to reap the finest fruit of labor, which 
is improvement, not wealth, never having plowed nor 
planted ! 

Let us separate wholly in our minds effort from result. 
Good results are pleasant, and often important; effort 
is always its own reward. Every well-directed blow I 
plant gives strength to my arm and skill to my fingers 
equally whether I am paid for my work or cheated of 
it. Laziness is social gangrene; like the sword of Hu- 
dibras, Avhich ate into itself for lack of blood to eat, it 
is its own perdition. 

And as the spirit of labor constitutes an elemental 
part of my nature, so the result of my labor is still one 
with me. The wagon I make, the picture I draw, the 
page I write, and even the furniture I buy and place in 
my house, in their construction or situation, are my 
offspring. My fingers or my brain generated them. 
The manufactory which I set in motion, or the train of 
traffickings following my mercantile beginniugs, carry 
forever in their clatter and commerce my thoughts and 
my being. Thus one lives after one is dead, lives per 
petually; for the results of a single blow never jet have 
died, nor ever can die. A.11 else is decay and desola- 
tion; labor's fruits alone are eternal. 

Hence, I say, work in itself is a blessing; and before 
God himself can make it a curse, he must change the 
order of things. He may sow thistles in Adam's fields, 
and burn Cain's crops; he gives their seed progress for 



"WORK. 37 

their pains. Civilization is generally regarded a good 
thing, though Avhether it brings happiness is a moot 
question. Adam was the first of savages; nor until he 
was driven from his paradisiacal garden could he or his 
children have set out on a progressional journey. Per- 
fectmanis unfitted for an imperfect world; and imperfect 
man in paradise, it seems, proved a failure. 

Aud as nature's laws are immutable, and work is 
nature's law, the law of work is immutable. Philoso- 
phers talk of success and its conditions. Success has 
no condition but one, that is work. Honest, well- 
directed effort is as sure to succeed as the swelling 
rivulet is sure to find for itself a channel. Let the 
young man take heart, have patience, and persevere, 
laboring not as in the presence of a task-master whom 
to defraud of time or faithfulness were a gain; but re- 
membering that every good deed is done for himself, 
and makes him stronger, healthier, wiser, nobler, 
whether performed in the dark or in the broad light of 
open day. 

Finally, notwithstanding all that has been said about 
the chronic discomforts of labor, if we probe the appar- 
ent evil deep enough we shall find a substratum of pos- 
itive delight. Beneath the surface of painful effort 
there is even at the time a piquant pleasure as well as 
profit. In devotees of discomfort humanity has ever 
found something worshipful. Fleshly mortifications 
have made saints and heroes by hundreds, and gods 
and clemi-gods by scores. The admiration excited by 
an ascetic indifference to pain is more than recompeuse 
for the pain. As in the pursuit of wealth, or ambition, 
so in religion, present sufferings are joyous in view of 
the future reward. 

Further than this; pleasure is often found in discom- 



38 WORK. 

fort where tliere is no prospective gain. In roughing 
it, in arduous sports, in scaling mountains and penetrat- 
ing unexplored regions, a wild exhilarating joy is found 
beside which effortless pleasure is insipid. 

Much is said in these latter days about over-work. 
Of course excess of any kind is an evil; and the greater 
the blessing the greater the curse when carried too far. 
Tet in my opinion there is much less over-work than 
many Avould have us believe; much less over-work than 
over-reaching. It is worry that kills men, not work. 
The harrowing cares of over-strained business; the 
snapping of hungry hounds who follow at the heels of 
the unwary, the burnings of jealousy, stock-gambling 
and the demon drink, extravagance in dress and living — 
these are what wear life away. And yet worry is a di- 
vine quality. Jehovah worries over the wicked. How 
Israel worried him, especially the leaders of Israel, 
Moses, Jacob, and David! The worthless worry but 
little, and brutes least of all. The horse knows when 
he is hungry, cold, and tired; but he does not trouble 
himself about to-morrow's work or provender. With the 
necessary food, and raiment, and rest, work never injured 
any one. The student should not neglect physical ex- 
ercise, or the laboring or business man intellectual 
culture. The highest attainment comes only with the 
proper development of both mind and body. Either 
exercised unduly brings weakness upon the other. 
Work may be varied with great advantage; and though 
all men cannot be always wise, it is the height of folly 
to hatch trouble. 

I am well aware that in discussing the benefits of 
labor apart from the fruits of labor, in attempting to 
define its abstract qualities and determine its individual 
relationship to human progress, and in alluding to its 



A TRUE STOEY. 39 

presence or absence in the economy of the universe, 
I am dealing in impossibilities. For there is no such 
thing in nature as that mind or matter,, or any part 
or particle of them, should for a moment cease from 
work. But, as before remarked, the abstract view I 
have endeavored to avoid, however imperfectly I may 
have succeeded; and to those who care to profit by it, I 
believe there is a lesson in the acknowledged fact, that 
work of itself is no curse but a blessing. 



A TRUE STORY. 

By S. Austin Allibone. 

Before I tell the * ' true story, " I have a few observa- 
tions to make : 

I. It is the duty of every man, woman and child in 
the Avorld to strive to diminish the miserv and increase 

ft/ 

the happiness of his or her fellow-beings. Every time 
that you take one stone from the heap of misery, every 
time that you add one stone to the hea^D of happiness, 
you are acting as a philanthropist. 

II. The duties which you owe to your fellow^men com- 
prise all efforts made for their temporal and for their 
eternal welfare. Under the first are included those 
good offices which pertain to their establishment in 
trade or business of any kind, procuring situations, 
helping by loans or gifts of money, increasing their 
lists of customers, urging upon them the necessity of 
honesty, industry, temperance, etc. Under the last are 
included those good offices which pertain to their moral 
and spiritual well-being, urging upon them the duty of 
prayer, perusal of the Bible and other good books, 



40 A TEUE STORY. 

Sunday-scliool and cliiircli attendance, the necessity of 
conversion, holiness, and zeal in good works. 

III. The obligations to the performance of the duties 
above enumerated are of the strongest kind. They are 
pleasing to heaven and earth; by them, or by the absence 
of them, you are judged by your fellow-men; by them, 
or by the absence of them, you will be judged at the Last 
Da}^ '' Whilst we have time let us do good unto all men," 
exhorts Saint Paul. "The night cometh when no man 
can work," is the warning of Christ; and in His sublime 
representation of the Day of Judgment (St. Matt, xxv: 
31-46), the eternal rewards and punishments then de- 
creed are based entirely upon the performance of good 
Avorks. Not that we are to be saved by good works: all 
the virtues of all the saints in and out of heaven could 
never save the greatest saint that ever lived; but good 
works are the evidence of that faith by which the right- 
eousness of Christ is appropriated to our justification. 
And what other evidence could there be but works ? 

Strive to save your fellow-creatures from temporal 
and eternal ruin; and never consider any one as beyond 
hope. That you may be encouraged to such good deeds, 
I now proceed to tell you what I know to be 

TRUE STORY. 

One afternoon, in the city of Philadelphia, many 
years ago, a plasterer stepped into the office of a gen- 
tleman who was a stranger to him, and asked permission 
to leave the tools of his trade until he could call for 
them, explaining, ''I have my proud clothes on (ho 
had probably just arrived in the city by the steamboat), 
and do not care to carry the tools in the street." Per- 
mission was granted, and the plasterer's new acquaint- 
ance, perceiving that the latter had been drinking, be- 



A TEUE STORY. 41 

stowed upon him some earnest words of exhortation and 
remonstrance. Months afterwards, the plasterer, with 
every evidence of respectability and prosperity about 
him, returned to the office, and after a cordial greeting 
to the occupant, asked: 

''Do you remember me, sir?" 

''I do not." 

''Well, sir, one day I stopped in here when I had 
been drinking, and what you said to me was the means 
of saving me." 

" Come in and tell me the whole story." 

"I was brought up," said he, "in the grocery store 

of M and B , and when I came ot age I had 

$2500, and started in the plastering trade. I did well 
and made money, but I got to drinking, and became 
so reduced that I have known my wife to get up in the 
night to warm a little water to keep the child alive till 
morning. At last my wife went back to her father's; 
and I used to drink all day, and at night creep into a 
condemned car on Broad street to sleep. I used to go 
from one tavern to another. I. was ashamed to drink all 
I wanted at one tavern. I would take — drinks at 'The 

Star,' so many at , so many at : fifty-five to 

sixty drinks a day. I concluded to kill myself; so I 
went to an apothecary's and bought some laudanum. I 
drank it, and lay down to die. It was too large a dose. 
I threw it off; and I thought, perhaps God has saved me 
for some good purpose. The day you spoke to me I had 
taken fifty-five 'smallers.' I didn't like your speaking 
to me. I thought, 'that young man had better mind 
his own business.' The next morning I called for 
liquor; but when it was before me I remembered what 
you said to me — to determine not to drink. I paid for 
the liquor, but I did not touch it: and I have never 



42 A TRUE STORY. 

tasted a drop since. I joined *Tbe Wasliingtonians/ 
and became a temperance lecturer. I have got between 
three and four hundred to sign the pledge. When I 
have a job of plastering I write to the temperance men 
to get up a meeting, and I speak. We had meetings 
in Trenton, New Jersey, and an old tavern-keeper ap- 
pealed to me not to have meetings there. ^For,' says 
he, *I am an old man, and if the people stop drinking, 
what can I do?' I asked him how many years he had 
kept tavern in Trenton; he told me. 'Well,' I replied, 
'you go around collecting all the rags you have made in 
this town, and you will have enough to set up a paper 
factory.' I used to be so fond of drink that if I had 
stood on one side of hell, and there had been a glass of 
rum on the other side I would have jumped for it. If 
you had said the day I saw you, 'There's no use in 
talking to him; he has been drinking,' by this time I 
would have filled a drunkard's grave. Now my wife has 
come back to me; we have got in our coal and flour for 
the winter, and you must come up and see us.'^ 

The gentleman did go, and passed a pleasant time 
with the reformed drunkard and his Avife. 

Doubtless there are many such cases as this; and if 
you, my readers, do your duty, there may be many 
more. When you are hesitating whether you shall or 
shall not make an effort for the benefit of your race, do 
it — and a good deed is done forever. And pray that 
your good deeds may have the blessing of Him who 
went about doing good. 



A STKANGE EXPERIENCE 43 



A STRANGE EXPERIENCE. 

By "Haet Baenard" (Bentley). 

Some few years since, in making the tour of the 
Southern States, I had occasion to take the five o'clock 
express train from a country town to a certain city in 
Florida. It was a gloomy, miserable evening, and I was 
only too pleased to leave the muddy little village where 
I had been detained for two days, and enter the com- 
fortable cars with the prospect of the luxuries of a city 
before me, even though I were obliged to put up with 
the dreary loneliness of a strange hotel. 

The train was very crowded, and I passed through 
several cars before finding a single vacant seat. At 
length, however, I discovered one just under a lamp 
which was lighted, for the clouds and rising fog had 
closed in the evening prematurely. 

As I comfortably ensconced myself, I noticed that my 
companion was a gentleman of middle age, of rather 
prepossessing appearance, with reddish hair and full 
beard, and dressed with all that recherche which at once 
indicated that he belonged to the upper or at least to 
the wealthy class. I saw at a glance that he was a for- 
eigner, and undoubtedly English. Nor was I mistaken 
in my conjecture, for, after the lapse of a moment or 
two, the stranger turned and addressed me with the 
purest British accent. "You are very unfortunate, sir," 
he said to me, with a winning smile. "I am not aware 
of the fact," I replied, looking at him in some surprise; 
"how so, pray?" 

"It is evident that you are a stranger in the South, 
and are going to see our city for the first time this even- 
ing!" "You are quite right, sir," I answered; "but 



44 A STRANGE EXPEBIENCE. 

for all that, I can'fc quite understand in what I am nn- 
fortiinate." '' Merely because it is such a dismal night, 
and our town in a rain and fog is simply detestable ! " 

I answered the gentleman that I had traveled suffi- 
ciently to be able to make allowances for first impres- 
sions; and thus we fell into a lively, interesting chat, 
while the train flew on over the gloomy, misty country, 
at a break-neck speed. 

After an hour or so had elapsed, the gentleman drew 
a card-case from his pocket, and presented me with a 
card, upon which was engraved the name *' Henry 
Archibald Dalton," while down in the right-hand corner 
was the address, "Boselands." Taking the hint, I im- 
mediately gave him my card. 

*'Now," observed Mr. Dalton, ''we shall be able to 
converse more freely; of all things in the world, I dis- 
like to be forever calling a man sir, sir, sir." 

I found Mr. Dalton so very genial and agreeable that 
I made bold to inquire what ''Boselands" meant. "Oh, 
Koselands is my country-seat, eight miles out of the 
city which is to be our destination to-night," he replied; 
"it is a gloomy old nest, and I never feel quite like 
inviting friends there, for several reasons. You see, my 
life has been a checkered one, and now just as I am be- 
ginning to be at peace with all the world, my sins and 
short-comings seem to be visited upon my head; so I 
have retired to Boselands and have buried my miseries 
there ! " H^re he laughed so heartily that I felt con- 
vinced such a good, easy-going soul could have known 
but few of the trials of life; and as for "sins" and 
" miseries," why, they must be as foreign to such a na- 
ture as arson and larceny to a baby. 

Thus we journeyed on, and gradually fell into silence. 
Presently I looked at my watch, and discovered that it 



A STRANGE EXPERIENCE. 45 

was half-past six, and at seven we were due in town. 
Mr. Dalton had fallen into a comfortable doze, and I 
was just losing myself when the shriek of the whistle 
brought me to mj feet, and almost instantly there suc- 
ceeded a terrific crash which threw us all out of our 
seats, and raised a scream of fright and dismay among 
the passengers. The fact was, we had come suddenly 
into collision with a freight-train, and our engine had 
been reduced to a complete wreck. In the midst of the 
confusion, I was about to leave the car to ascertain the 
extent of the damage done to life and rolling-stock, 
when I was arrested by a low groan from my companion. 
''Are 3'Ou hurt, Mr. Dalton?"! inquired anxiousl}^ 
''I fear my ankle is dislocated," he said faintly. I did 
what I could to render him comfortable, but to my sur- 
prise I found him strangely, almost childishly, nervous. 

''My God," he moaned to himself, "what if I had 
been killed ! all the prayers in creation would not have 
made me lie easy in my grave." 

I began to think that the man really did have some- 
thing on his conscience, and consequently I became 
curiously interested in him. 

"There is no help for it,'' he said to me presently, 
"you must go to Eoselands with me to-night; I dare 
not drive all that way alone, suffering as I am ! — You 
won't object, will you?" he asked earnestly. E,eady for 
any adventure, I assured him that I was at his service. 

After a delay of two hours, we arrived in the . city, 
and with the aid of the conductor I assisted Mr. Dalton 
out of the cars and to a certain door in the station, 
which he indicated. There we found a carriage in wait- 
ing, into which we helped the injured gentleman. As I 
was about to enter also, I noticed that the coachman 
looked at me with a singular expression and would have 



46 A STRANGE EXPERIENCE. 

closed the carriage door in my face had I not exclaimed: 
"Pardon me, I am going too," and stepped in and 
taken my seat. Through the brilliantly lighted streets 
we whirled, and were soon out again in the dark, misty 
country. Mr. Dalton was evidently suffering severely, 
and consequently said but little; therefore I had ample 
opportunity to congratulate myself upon the prospect 
of an adventure, as we rode along. After an hour or 
more, the speed slackened and we passed between two 
massive stone gate-posts. Thereupon Mr. Dalton broke 
the silence, "You will meet my bride this evening," 
he said; "she, at least, can entertain you, as I am ut- 
terly unfit to play the host." With that we drew up 
before the lighted entrance of a large mansion, such as 
are still to be met with in the South; and immediately 
the carriage door was thrown open by the loveliest 
angel of a woman that I ever beheld. 

"Why Henry! what ," she began to exclaim, but 

stopped short at sight of me. 

"Miriam," gasped Mr. Dalton, "this is my friend 
Mr. Bentley. Now you must both help me up the steps, 
for I have sprained my ankle." With his fair, young 
wife on one side and me on the other, Henry Dalton 
reached the richly-f urnished parlors and sank exhausted 
upon a sofa. I soon found that the little lady would per- 
mit no one but herself to attend to her husband's needs; 
and in less than an hour she had rendered him so com- 
fortable that he had dropped off into an agreeable 
slumber. 

Then we went out to tea together. Though I had 
been ravenously hungry, I found myself so fascinated by 
Mrs. Dalton that I could scarcely eat at all. With all 
the enthusiasm of a child she told me of her courtship, 
of her marriage in London, and of her journey to Amer- 
ica. 



A STKANGE EXPERIENCE 47 

*'And how long liave you been here?'' I asked. 
'Tour months!" she replied, "but it seems an eter- 
nity, for there are certain things which render Rose- 
lands a very sad place." Four months only ! Why, 
Mr. Dalton had given the impression that he had lived 
here the greater part of his life ! And was this beauti- 
ful creature before me the "misery" he had buried at 
Hoselands ? But I held my peace, for I never like to 
read the last page of a novel first. 

It was late when we retired that night, and finding 
myself particularly at ease, I was regaling myself with a 
cigar and a drowsy resume of the day's proceedings, 
when a light shone under a door in my room, which I 
had scarcely noticed. Hardly was I aware of the fact 
when the door was cautiously opened, and there entered 
a tall, stately man, attired in black, and carrying a 
lighted candle. Considerably surprised and not a little 
startled by this sudden apparition in the solitude of my 
chamber, I sprang to my feet and attempted an awkward 
bow. Ere I had time to frame a word, the stranger 
raised his hand in token of silence, and said in a swift 
under-tone, "This is no time for mock-civility, for I am 
desperate ! You are the first person who has ever en- 
tered this detestable place, beside my keepers, since I 
was imprisoned here ! It is given out that I am a ma- 
niac; indeed I should be one were I to remain here 
another month! But at last I have the means of escape, 
provided I have assistance. Heaven certainly has sent 
you to me!" Before I could digest this startling an- 
nouncement and find words to reply, he Avas speaking 
again. "I have secured a way to leave my room to- 
morrow, and if at ten o'clock in the morning you can be 
man enough to rise and assist an outraged fellow-man, 
Heaven will bless you ! " 



48 A STEANGE EXPERIENCE. 

"But who lire you ? " I faltered. 

"T am Henry Archibald Dalton's elder brother. You 
will understand that wretch's unnatural crime when I 
tell you that in order to gain possession of the riches of 
a wealthy family, which, by the British law of primo- 
geniture, should be mine, he has seen fit to drag me to 
this country as a driveling maniac. He has not the 
courage to murder me, but he has the cunning to keep 
me in this helpless condition !" 

Of course, I said that I should be only too happy to 
be of assistance. 

''Very well," he replied nervously, *'I will trust you 
to have Henry Dalton and his wife in the dining-room, 
while I attempt my escape. Should I fail, you will pro- 
duce this paper which I now place in your hands, and 
which is a spurious warrant for his arrest. For the 
time being you will have to play the part of a supposed 
detective. I depend upon you; I have your promise of 
assistance." 

He handed me the paper, and was about to leave the 
room, when I detained him with the question, "Is his 
wife an accomplice in his crime?" 

"No! she is as innocent as a child I" 

"Thank God!" 

With that he retired, closing the door behind him. 

To say that I slept that night, would be a very great 
stretch of the imagination. Suffice it to say, that I re- 
turned thanks when the first gray streaks of dawn illu- 
mined the eastern sky; and at a most unconscionable 
hour, I was up and dressed. Eight o'clock sounded; 
then, nine ! And all the time I was pacing up and down 
the parlors in a frantic state of excitement. Just as the 
half-hour rang, however, there were footsteps in the 
hall, and Henry Dalton entered, leaning upon the arm 
of his young wife. If Miriam Dalton had been angelic 



A STKANGE EXPERIENCE. 49 

by lamp-liglit, she was simply seraphic in the rays of 
the morning sun. However, I scarcely stopped to note 
all this, but exclaimed abruptly: 

''My dear Mr. Dalton, I suppose it is due to your 
country air, but I am fiercely hungry." 

"Come right into the dining-room, my friend," he 
replied gaily; "breakfast must be on the table already; 
and pray, pardon us, for we are very late." 

"We went to the dining-room, but in spite of my 
protestations, I never touched a morsel, for we were no 
sooner seated than the clock struck — ten ! My misery 
was just beginning to attract the attention of my hosfc, 
when a figure glided down the stair-case in full view of 
Mrs. Dalton and myself. 

"Good heavens, Henry," gasped the little lady in 
terror, "there goes your poor brother!" 

"What!" shrieked Dalton, struggling to rise. The 
next moment, the tall figure of the man I had seen on 
the preceding night, stood upon the threshold of the 
dining-room. 

"Yes, Henry Dalton," he said calmly, "it is I, your 
brother, free!" 

The guilty wretcli started to his feet, sprang forward, 
and halted as though petrified with horror. 

"Detective, do your duty," cried the elder Dalton; 
" produce your warrant for the arrest of that criminal!" 
Mechanically I obeyed, drew the spurious paper from 
my breast, and held it up before Henry Dalton. "With 
a smothered cry he dashed at me, gazed an instant at 
the warrant, and then fell senseless at my feet. In- 
voluntarily I glanced at the young bride, and found her 
sitting there, griping the arms of her chair, as though 
paralyzed. Presently she rose, and faltered faintly, 

" Is this true ? " 
4 



50 GONE BEFORE. 

"Look at me, and doubt it if you can!" was the sol- 
emn reply from the doorwa}^ 

I cauglit the delicate form as it wavered and fell, and 
bore it away to the parlors. 



Years have elapsed since that terrible event, and the 
beautiful Miriam Dalton is now Miriam Bentley, and 
the crown of my life. 

Henry Dalton never rose from the spot upon which 
he fell stricken down by a guilty conscience. 

James Dalton returned to England, and is now in the 
peaceful possession of his rightful property, and the 
idol of his tenantry. 

Quite recently, my wife and I visited Florida, and 
impelled by curiosity, drove out to Roselands. To our 
surprise we found the place transformed into a convent 
of independent nuns, under the direction of one Sister 
Anna Dalton, a sister of the unfortunate brothers. We 
were kindly received, though not recognized; and in 
the cool shade of the garden the pale Sister of Charity 
narrated the story of her sad possession of '' Eoselands." 



GONE BEFOEE. 

By Samuel S. Hall ("Buckskin Sam"). 

Can it be she's left us, for that unknown shore? 
Shall we never see her, never, never more? 
Yes! she's with the angels, clothed in spotless white; 
One of Christ's own children, standing at his right. 

No more we see our darling, coming up the lane, 
No more upon the earth shall we see her again; 
No more the greeting that she ever gave to all, 
No more her merry laugh on earthly ears shall fall. 



A SKETCH FEOM HUMBLE LIFE. 51 

A SKETCH FEOM HUMBLE LIFE. 

By Noah Brooks. 

It was mj habit of a morning, wlieu going from my 
lodgings to mj club, to pass tlirougli tlie little park 
of Union Square. Tlie plashing fountain, tlie little chil- 
dren playing in the sunshine, the frisky sparrows twit- 
tering and giggling about the water-basins, and the 
vagrant boot-blacks racing among the benches, com- 
bined to make a pleasant picture to one who had a few 
minutes of absolute leisure and no immediate care upon 
his mind. Among the boot-blacking urchins, I had 
observed a picturesque-looking Italian boy, chiefly no- 
ticeable for his handsome brown face and a lock of dark 
hair which streamed from a hole in the top of his bat- 
tered, peaked, felt hat. As it was my wont to have my 
boots polished while on the way through the square, the 
entire flock of boys usually dashed at me as soon as they 
beheld me, very much as a cloud of sparrows rush down 
upon a handful of crumbs scattered on the turf. The 
swarthy Italian, being the most nimble, usually secured 
the coveted job, and he worked at it with a thorough 
conscientiousness which deserved all praise. Then, too, 
he received his dime with such a hearty thankfulness 
that he won my regard. So, one day, he said, '' Mistoo, 
I blacken your boots to-day, yesterday and day before." 

^' Well," said I, ''what of it?" 

One of the crowd of fellow- craftsmen who stood by 
critically watching the polishing of my boots, interposed 
with, ''Say, mister, he wants a stiddy job. Don't you 
give it to him, he's a dirty Eyetalian." 

" Oh, you shet up. What you know about it?" said 
the little foreigner. Then, looking up to me, he said, 



52 A SKETCH FROM HUMBLE LIFE. 

"Don't you mind-a those boys, Mistoo, tliey no good. 
You be here to-morrow?" 

So it became a tacit understanding between us that 
he was to liave tlie preference as my regular boot-black. 
Every morning thereafter, he lay in Avait for me, and, 
long before I entered the square he v/ould rush to inter- 
cept me with his cheery "Mornin, Mistoo," and then 
kneel at my feet with his bit of carpet. If I missed 
him and resigned myself to the offices of a rival boot- 
black, he never failed to appear before the work was 
done, and stand sullenly by, black with jealousy and 
disappointment, dropping remarks upon the work in his 
comical Italian-English. At other times during the day, 
when I passed that way, the boy was racing about in 
pursuit of his customers, his plume of hair waving from 
the crown of his hat, and seductively crying "Shine?" 

When he saw me coming from afar, his handsome 
face broke into smiles and he gradually introduced into 
his salutation " Glad to see-a you. How's you health?" 
A pair of old thick gloves which I bestowed upon him, 
when the wintry winds began to blow, quite won the 
poor foreigner's heart; and one morning, while breath- 
ing on the polished leather to heighten the effect of his 
elaborate rubbing, he suddenly lifted his face, and roll- 
ing his dark eyes said: 

"Mistoo, I kees-a you foot !" 

"Why do you kiss my foot, Louis?" I asked in aston- 
ishment. 

"Because I lofe you too much," was the reply, with a 
strong accent on the "too." Louis' English did not 
include a "very," but his comparative was "too." Ifc 
was never very cold, or very hot, with him, but "too 
hot" or "too cold." Of course, after that demonstra- 
tion of affection, we became intimate friends. 



A SKETCH PKOM HUMBLE LIFE. 53 

During that -winter, Louis so ingratiated himself into 
the good will of a shop-keeper on a corner near the 
Square, that he secured the exclusive right to hang 
around his doorway, which had a southern exposure and 
was near a busy thoroughfare. Basking in the wintry 
sunshine, the little foreigner crouched in his snug cor- 
ner, but with his eyes ever watchful of the by-passers. 
When a promising subject approached, he darted out 
like a fat spider from his retreat, and not a few persons 
yielded to his bright look of appeal. In this way he 
secured several regular customers, though Louis could 
never manage so long a word. He always referred to 
each as "one cust." In. this manner, he docked nearly 
every English word of its fair proportions. For exam- 
ple, on beginning his usual task on my boots, one morn- 
ing, his quick eye detected a pair of trousers which he 
had not seen before. 

''New trows ?" he asked, as he caressingly passed his 
hands over the soft cloth. And when I told him that 
they were new, he demanded, "How much cost?" I 
told him, and he sank back upon his haunches, con- 
templating the garments with mingled astonishment 
and admiration, murmuring, "Too much cost! Too 
miich cost!" The sum paid for a pair of trousers seemed 
to be too magnificent for his comprehension. 

Louis had longings for a higher plane of activity. 
One day he was so silent and preoccupied while black- 
ing my shoes, that I ventured to ask him what was the 
matter. Was he sick? 

"No, Mistoo," he said, raising himself with an effort. 
"Mea-think." 

"And what are you thinking about, mio figlio?^' 

"Mistoo, suppose I can get a job to se-lip in the 
street?" 



54 A SKETCH FKOM HUMBLE LIFE. 

"Sleep in the street, my poor boy! Why should you 
sleep ill the street ? " 

"No, no, not that! Se-lip in the street with a 
broom." 

By some mysterious rule in New York politics, most 
of the street-sweeping of the city is given over to the 
Italian voters. The Latin race, for reasons not appa- 
rent, is not equal to paving, laying of water-pipes, or 
general public contract-work of the more refined variety. 
Louis could not be made to understand that he must be 
twentj^-one years of age before he could hope for work 
under a paternal city government which cares only for 
the dear people who have votes. To this child of an 
effete European despotism, the ballot was a mystery un- 
fathomable. 

Giving up his ambition to sweep in the streets, Louis 
addressed himself to a more permanent establishment 
in business. He was sure that he was not respectable 
enough in his commercial appearance. "One cust" 
had given him a hat, another a pair of shoes, and a 
third had adorned him with a cast-off coat, so that he 
looked like a thriving boot-black. Pondering the 
matter, he suddenly asked me, one day, " Mistoo, 
suppose you buy me one chair?" 

" What do you want a chair for, Louis?" 

"For cust. You see the cust he come to blacken he 
boot; he no find-a no chair; he lazy to stand, so he go 
away and I lose cust." 

This seemed reasonable enough. The boy had found 
a, place where a second-hand wooden chair could be 
bought for fifty cents. But no amount of persuasion 
would induce him to take the money and buy the chair. 
He insisted that he could not get it by himself. I must 
go with him and pay the money. Whether he distrusted 



A SKETCH FEOM HUMBLE LIFE. 55 

the dealer, or wanted me to be sure that the money was 
honestly expended, I could not guess. At any rate, guided 
by my humble friend, I went over to a musty, dusty 
shop in Third Avenue, bought and paid for the coveted 
chair, which Louis carried off on his head with the hap- 
py pride of proprietorship. It w^as agreed between us 
that Louis should repay me by installments at long in- 
tervals. His room-rent and board cost him two dollars 
a week. He was fortunate when he made fifty cents a 
day. On rainy days he made nothing at all, unless it 
came off fine before dark. Many people, perhaps a 
majority, paid only five cents for a " shine," and some, 
I blush to say, were mean enough to go away without 
paying anything. Besides, Louis had his '^dead-head 
list," strange to say. One day, seeing the big police- 
man whose "beat" included Louis' corner, go away 
without paying for the polish on his immense shoes, I 
asked Louis, with some indignation, why he let the man 
impose upon him. " Oh, he's a good cop," said Louis, 
beaming all over with admiration for the policeman. 

" He is a friend of 3'ours, then ?" 

" Oh, yes; one day there came along one what you 
call a lofe, eh ? " 

"Loafer?" 

" Yes that-a it — lofe. He hit-a me on the head while 
I was shining o' the cust. Next day, and he strike -a 
the hat over my eye. Next day, same Avay, and he grab 
my box-ee. Then I jump-a up and grab him so;" and 
here the boy clutched himself by the throat to show 
how it was done. "Then he cry to the cop to take-a 
me off. The cop he come-a and say to the boy, ' I 
watch-a you, you bad boy. Twice before you bat this-a 
boy. Now you git, or I take-a you in.' So the boy he 
run off. Oh, he good cop; I like him ever since." 



56 A SKETCH FROM HUMBLE LIFE. 

And Louis fell to his work with a vivid sense of being 
protected. 

One morn I missed him on the 'customed chair. 
That valuable part of Louis's establishment had not 
been brought up from the cellar where the boy had per- 
mission to store it at night. Days passed, and no sign 
of the missing youngster appeared. He Avas now eigh- 
teen years old, and big enough to resist any of the 
padroiies who sometimes kidnap little fellows and carry 
them to other cities. He must be sick; I would try 
and find his lodgings. 

On the night of the fourth day of tlie boy's disap- 
pearance, tidings of him reached me in a letter sent 
through the mail . It was brief, and ran thus : 

"New Youk, Dec. 13, 187-. 
*'Mr. B . 

" Dear Sir: Louis, of Union Square, is arrested, and now 

at the Tombs. Come and see me before ten o'clock. 

''Louis." 

This was surprising, and I went to bed with many 
misgivings. The traditional Italian passionateness, I 
thought, had broken out in violence, and Louis was 
probably in the Tombs on charge of assault, or some- 
thing more serious. My bell rang next morning while 
I was dressing; and I found in the hall a particularly 
unwholesome-looking and unsavory old man. He was 
a messenger from the Tombs, and bore this unique and 
plaintive epistle from the captive: 

"My Dear, Dearest Mr. Brookey: — You will probabty 
remember easily the young Italian who used so joyfully to 
blacken your boots in Union Square for a long period. I 
and my brother were arrested for assault, and are now in- 
carcerated here. I do not understand a word of the Eng- 
lish, and am now in a miserable state, owing to the 



A SKETCH FROM HUMBLE LIFE. 57 

miserable surroundings. You are the only one I can ap- 
peal to at present, and knowing your kind disposition, I am 
sure you will befriend me in my present state. Please, if 
possible, call before 11 o'clock. I am now so desperate, I 
send a special messenger, and send an answer. Hoping, 
kind sir, you wdll favorably think of my case, and relying 
on your humanity, 

"I have the honor to remain your humble servant. 

Louis. 
*' P. S. I am under $400 bail, or six months on the Island, 
a pleasant prospect for a poor Italian. On you only I 
trust. Revive my hopes.'' 

This letter was w^ritten, as I afterwards learned, by an 
Italian hanger-on about the prison, who acted as inter- 
preter in the police court. But the wail was unques- 
tionably Louis'. Bidding the messenger tell Louis to 
be of good cheer, I made ready to follow him; for it 
was now late in the morning, and I knew that the police 
court opened early. 

I need not stop to tell how I found myself at once in 
the toils of the creatures who infest the city prisons. 
It ^vas a most serious case, they said. Nothing could 
be done without bribing to the right and bribing to the 
left. I reflected. Nobody knew this boy as w^ell as I 
did. I could have no possible reason for shielding him 
from justice. The authorities, possibly, knew of me; 
at least, they could find out what manner of man I was. 
So I walked boldly into the office of the committing 
magistrate, sending my card before me. The magis- 
trate, a huge-framed man with a benignant face and 
mild blue eyes, explained that the two Italians had 
been arrested for an assault upon one Bridget Lafferty, 
a laundress, who lodged in the tenement house where 
the young men had their sleeping-place. There had 



58 A SKETCH FROM HUMBLE LIFE. 

been a quarrel about a watch which the woman claimed 
that the bojs had given her, but which they denied 
having parted with except as a loan. In the struggle 
over this piece of property, the younger boy had kicked 
in the door of Mrs. Lafferty's apartment, and the twain 
had seized and carried away the watch. I expressed 
my disbelief of the woman's story. The watch, I knew, 
was a cheap Italian affair, but an heirloom, and attached 
to it was a short chain, or chatelaine, made from the 
hair of the mother and sister of the boys. Was it likely 
that the poor lad, who had clung to this little bit of 
finery through all his poverty, would give it to a stranger? 

^' You knew these boys, then?" asked the magistrate. 

I explained that for nearly three years past, I had 
seen the younger boy every day, except when I was not 
in the city, that he had cleaned my boots and shoes on 
the street and at my lodgings, and that in various ways 
I had learned that Louis coald not be the drunken ruf- 
fian that the loquacious Lafferty made him out to be. 
Moreover, if bail were wanted, it should be famished; 
but the boys should not be sent to consort with thieves 
and dissolute characters. 

"Make out the discharge of these lads," said the mag- 
istrate turning to the clerk. That official, who had been 
listening to the conversation with manifest interest, 
promptly filled up the required blanks, and, directed by 
the magistrate, he descended with me to the lower re- 
gions. Certain forms being complied with, an officer 
disappeared within a grated cage in the rear of which 
was a door leading to the cells. Presently he returned 
with Louis and his brother, who, as soon as they saw 
me, clasped their hands ecstatically, and, liberated at 
last, both dropped on their knees, one on either side, 
and kissed my hands, shedding tears and relieving their 
minds in very choice Italian. 



A SKETCH PROM HUMBLE LIFE. 59 

Dismayed at this unexpected scene, I hustled the boys 
out of the prison as soon as possible, and postponed 
any inquiries until we were in the street. It seems, 
from Louis' story, that they had lent the watch to Mrs. 
Lafferty who had washed some clothes for them, and 
who begged the loan of it as she wished to appear well 
at a party, given by Patsy Doolan, to celebrate her com- 
ing of age. She had refused to give it up, next day, 
and when the boys took it away by force, she had them 
arrested on charge of assault and intoxication. On her 
sole testimony, the lads were sentenced to six months 
in the House of Correction. 

But where was the watch now? Louis produced a 
greasy card on the back of which were some meaning- 
less words. This was a receipt, he said, from a lawyer 
who had agreed to defend them. They had no money 
and he took the watch as security for payment of his 
fee. On the face of the card was the printed address of 
one of the small lawyers, or ''shysters," of the Tombs 
neighborhood. Crossing the street, we entered a noi- 
some little den, lighted only by its street door, in which 
was a small window. Its furniture was a deal table, 
two chairs, four or five battered law books, a diminutive 
cylinder stove, and an engraved portrait of Peter B. 
Sweeney. A freckle-faced boy, with red hair, was en- 
gaged in balancing a poker on his chin. Removing that 
implement with an injured air, he informed us that Mr. 
Clinchem vv^as busy in court. Just then Mr. Clinchem 
came in, very much astonished, evidently, to see his 
late clients at large, when he had persuaded himself 
that they were safely housed on Blackwell's Island. 

"Oh, I congratulate you," he said, "you have pow- 
erful friends, I see. It was a pretty bad case." And 
he showed his tobacco-stained teeth, in a ghastly at- 
tempt at a smile. 



60 A SKETCH FEOM HUMBLE LIFE. 

'* You have a watcli belonging to these boys, I believe, 
Mr. Clinchem," said I. 

''He's got it in his pocket," whispered Louis to me; 
'•'I see the chain on his vest." 

"Yes," answered the man, *'they gave me this as se- 
curity. Not worth much, you see; but then my fee is 
not heavy." 

''Well, Mr. Clinchem, I will pay your fee; but before 
we go any further, suppose you take off that watch and 
give it to the owner." 

The fellow scowled, then took off the watch and gave 
it to Louis v/ithout a word. He had done nothing 
whatever for the cul|)rits, as he acknowledged, except 
to send them an interpreter, who had written the letters 
to me. This trifling service was paid for, and we got 
out of the den of the spider as soon as possible. 

When we were once more in the street, I said: "Don't 
you two boys ever come within sight of that prison 
again as long as you live." 

Louis somehow gained the impression that I had be- 
come bound for his good behavior for six months. He 
was most exemplary in his conduct, though so far as I 
could see, there was no special need for improvement 
in that particular. He appeared somewhat chastened 
in his manner, and evidently regarded his incarceration 
in the Tombs as a disgraceful episode to wdiich no ref- 
erence was to be made. Possibly the restraint upon 
his naturalness which this sense of a legal burden 
caused him to feel, induced him to take a strange step. 
One morning, with his usual suddenness, he accosted 
me with this intelligence : 

"Mister, I am going-a Californ'." 
•"Going to California! How are you going, pray?" 

"Oh, one man, he friend of my broth', he going-a 



A SKETCH FEOM HUMBLE LIFE. 61 

Californ', and lie take me and two or three other fell'. 
He pay our pass', and we work for him for one year. 
What-a you tink, eh?" 

It seemed a little odd that a boy without a trade 
should be so desirable an emigrant to California that 
his passage should be paid to the Golden State, and 
work and wages there guaranteed him for a year. But 
Louis was firm in the belief that 'Hhe man" was a good 
man. His brother had known him for a long time and 
had assured Louis that '^it was all right." So I reluc- 
tantly approved of the scheme. If he only got out to 
California safely he was no worse off there than here, 
even if he had no hold upon the person who engaged to 
employ him. I could furnish him with recommendatory 
credentials which would serve him in case of great need. 

So I found the boy loitering about my door one after- 
noon, waiting to say good-bye. I gave him the ad- 
dresses of friends in San Francisco to whom he might 
go if he needed help. He lingered silently about, kissed 
my hands passionately, cried a little, and then rushed 
away with a tearful smile on his face, and so was gone. 

An Italian and a stranger sat in Louis' chair waiting 
for customers. A change of my location took me from 
the daily round which included Union Square in my 
walk, and I lost all interest in the corner where I was 
accustomed to look for Louis' shining morning face. I 
heard nothing from him, and the California friends to 
whom I had written knew nothing of him. 

Six months passed, and one day, to my great sur- 
prise, I found him at his old post, looking exactly as if 
he had never left it. He greeted me with a certain re- 
pressed joy which was curious to see. When I asked 
him where he had come from, he said, " I been-a Cali- 
forn'. The man no good." 



62 A SKETCH FEOM HUMBLE LIFE. 

''But liow did you get back, Louis?" 

"I work my pass' ou the stim [steamer] from San 
Francisk to Panama. In Panama I stay four week; 
then I walk over to Aspinwall on the rail; stay there two 
week, and work my pass' to New York on the other 
stim, and here I am." 

And the young adventurer fell to work polishing my 
slioes as if he had returned for no other purpose. I 
could not see that Louis had gained the slightest knowl- 
edge of anything by his voyages. The only acquisition 
which he brought with him was a battered Panama hat 
and a new form of salutation. Thereafter he met me 
with, "How 3^ou git along?" of a morning, with a curi- 
ously misplaced emphasis on the word which I have 
italicised. Whenever I questioned him about his trip 
he cast down his eyes and scraped the pavement with 
his toes, in an embarrassed manner. In spite of his 
explicit statement of his stages of travel, I have always 
been haunted by a vague suspicion that he never went 
to California at all. But whither did he disappear dur- 
ing that half-year? 

Not many months after Louis' return, there came sad 
news from home. His mother w^as dead. I did not see 
the boy until some weeks after he received the tidings. 
When I met him, he Avas plunged into the depths of woe. 
I found him lying curled up in the canny corner of his 
haunt, his head tied up with a handkerchief across his 
forehead, and he was moaning like a wounded animal. 
He was sick, he said, and he wanted to go home to his 
old father. A young compatriot, who was acting as 
Louis' substitute for the day, looked on in silent sym- 
pathy, but offered no consolation to the stricken youth. 

I lifted Louis out of his corner, shook him together, 
examined his pulse and tongue, which showed signs of 



A SKETCH FROM HUMBLE LIFE. 63 

fever and biliousness, and then took liim to a Idnd- 
hearted physician near by. He was sent home with a 
supply of medicine and, in a day or two, reappeared on 
his stand as bright and gay as ever. 

But the desire to return to Italy grev/ upon him. This 
country was "no good," he said, and he wanted to go 
back before the snow came again. To add to his anxiety, 
his brother took ship from Boston to Havre, trusting to 
work his way to Italy. Louis was desolated when he 
received this information, and soon lost all his cheerful- 
ness and boyish gayety. He talked of nothing, when I 
met him, but of going home. His was a case of aggra- 
vated nostalgia. Occasionally he regained his spirits, 
and once I saw him performing his favorite feat of 
climbing the lamp-posts along the square to turn on the 
gas, just in advance of the lamp-lighter, with whom he 
had long maintained friendly relations. 

''This country no good for poor man," he would say. 
"Italy no good, but it's better than this country for me. 
Mistoo, you send me home; I work all my life for you." 

Fortunately, my old friend Captain Marlow, about 
this time, was making ready to sail for Marseilles on his 
good ship, the ' 'Pole Star . " He agreed to take Louis as a 
green hand, allowing him to work his passage. Between 
us, we arranged that he should send the boy to Naples 
by steamer, paying his fare to that city. Louis was 
stupefied when I told him the good news. He could 
not believe it, but repeated, "Shall I go home," over 
and over again, as if it was too good to be true. 

In a day or two I took the boy on board of the ship 
lo show him to the captain. He immediately made a 
minute inspection of the vessel, examining her in every 
part, as if he meditated buying her. Then he returned 
to me, beaming joy and satisfaction at every pore. It 



64 A SKETCH FKOM HUMBLE LIFE. 

was impossible for liim to keep his white teeth covered. 
An intense grin prevented him from closing his mouth. 
The captain knew all his story, was interested in him, 
and had assured him that he should see Naples before 
the end of the next month. The boy's cup of happiness 
was full. 

It was a bright autumnal morning when Louis sailed. 
I had dined late on board the ' ' Pole Star, " with my friend 
the captain, and, as the vessel was anchored in the 
stream, had slept on the ship. Just after breakfast, 
Louis came off in a shore boat, rowed by some of his 
Italian friends, and carrying his scanty baggage in a 
canvas bag. The captain had agreed to see that his 
needed clothing was supplied from the ship's slop-chest, 
and he required nothing more. His silent laugh had 
become a fixed feature of his face, and he moved about 
the deck gingerly and observantly, as if afraid that he 
might break some of the wild tangle of running rigging 
around him. 

A tug soon came alongside to tow the ship down the 
harbor. All was ready for the beginning of the 
voyage, and the clangor at the windlass warned us 
that the anchor was beginning to rise. The cap- 
tain's gig was ready to set me ashore, and L took 
Louis' hand to bid him good-bye. The boy's grin 
faded suddenly away, and he cried, ''Mistoo! mio 
caro carisshno I Let me kees you before I see you no 
more!" He kissed me on my whiskered cheeks, and 
then, in an utter abandonment of grief and affection, 
passionately saluted me on my lips. With a wild howl, 
he fled into the forecastle and I saw him no more. Go- 
ing ashore, the Italian boatmen accompanied us to the 
pier steps, ever and anon casting a glance of respectful 
curiosity at Louis' friend. As I stepped upon the pier 



KIN AND KING. 65 

and turned to give a trifle to the gig's crew, the com- 
patriots of Louis deferentially doffed their caps, and 
then, without a word, rowed away. 

From Marseilles I learned of the safe arrival of the 
**Pole Star" and all on board. Louis w as reported back 
to me as being duly embarked for Naples, his passage 
paid and coin in his pocket. Beyond this, no word from 
the returned exile has ever reached me. Perhaps, when 
the ecstasy of being at home again shall have been 
mellowed by the lapse of time, he may find a way to 
send me a message. He is absorbed into the vast sea 
of humanity, an atom in the waste. 



KIN AND KING. 

Br Antoinette L. Brown (Blackwell). 

In centuries old, when Time, re-born, 
Began anew with the Christmas morn, 
As the Bethlehem Babe, on the fragrant hay. 
By the large-eyed kine in the manger lay, 
A look half human and half divine 
Sprang into the eyes of the hairy kine; 
Their pondering faces brood over the hay 
With a dreaming that never shall pass away. 

In centuries young, in the glad new time 
Of music and light, where the sunny clime 
Yields blossom and fruit to perfume the air. 
Gross darkness yet lingers in many a lair; 
And innocent children are cradled here 
Where the wild beast burdens the night with fear; 
On the hole of the asp they are left to play, 
By the den of the cockatrice prone to stray. 
5 



66 KIN AND KING. 

Tet millennial light in these desolate places 
But feebly illumines the dear baby-faces, 
Their guilelessness early is turned astra}'. 
And the little feet stumble and lose their way; 
For the creeping things, like the serpent of old, 
Leave a tortuous trail in the heart of the fold; 
While the sheep and the kine, imprisoned and dumb. 
Wait on in the gloom, till a glad morning come. 

To rescue the pattering, straying feet. 

To guide their steps to the sunny street, 

And into the meadows the little ones love. 

To live with the butterfly, bee, and dove — 

This kindles afresh a millennial glow. 

That will spread till the darkness is white as the snow; 

Its earliest ray can illumine the night. 

And brighten the dullness of brutish might. 

The heart of the child is humanity's leaven; 
" Of such" is the kingdom of Earth as of Heaven; 
The mightiest stream and the tiniest rill 
Are held as in leash by the human will, — 
And the hurrying clouds and the winds of fate; 
For man is master, in earthly estate; 
But the pattering feet must be started aright. 
For childhood is parent of manhood's might. 



THE CROSS OF THE SOUTH. 67 



THE CROSS OF THE SOUTH. 

By Mart Austin Carroll. (Sister of Mercy. ) 

Among the fairest and most favored portions of the 
earth, the Southern States of the Union may justly rank, 
and among the Southern States none is more charming 
than Louisiana. Beautiful at ail reasons, fair flowers 
and delicious fruits may be gathered from her fertile 
soil every day in the year. Green fields of rustling 
sugar-cane, groves of orange and bowers of myrtle, 
giant live-oaks and stately palms; the song of the mock- 
ing-bird making melody in the glades; the breeze laden 
with the perfume of jessamine and orange-blossom; 
cotton scattered in the sunlit fields like a miraculous 
snow fall; gardens bright with color and radiant with 
dew-drops, glowing as with the beauty of paradise — 
these are a few of the glories of the Southland, and they 
gladden the hearts and feast the eyes of the thousands 
who annually follow hither the migratory birds from the 
ice-bound regions of the North. 

The capital of this semi-tropical State, New Orleans, 
though ranking but eighth or ninth in population, is 
perhaps better known throughout Christendom than 
any other American city. From its spacious boulevards, 
miles of beautiful homes radiate in every direction. 
Handsome churches and fine public buildings vary the 
scene. The inhabitants are of every tribe and tongue, 
and people and nation. In a miscellaneous crowd, the 
winter guests can readily be recognized by their heavy 
costumes. Their child-like enjoyment of the novelty of 
blue skies, green trees and balmy air in December and 
January, is very amusing to a people, many of whom 
have never seen snow. 



68 THE CEOSS OF THE SOUTH. 

But, alas! the world-wide reputation of New Orleans 
is not due solely to its beauty. Perhaps the first idea 
its name suggests is yellow fever, as the English-speak- 
ing races style the plague which the Spaniards express- 
ively call vomito. But for that unwelcome visitant, no 
spot in America would be more desirable as a home. 
Yet despite the periodical visitations that appal the civ- 
ilized world. New Orleans increases from year to year 
in population, and that, to a great extent, through Eu- 
ropean and Northern immigration. I believe that if 
immunity from that dreadful scourge could be had. 
New Orleans would one day rank among the largest 
cities in the world. 

The epidemic of 1878 was, I think, entirely unex- 
pected. The summer was very warm, but New Orleans 
knows nothing of the heat-waves which scorch the 
Northern cities. Heat is comparatively easily borne 
here. Dwellings are constructed with a view to ward 
off its most troublesome effects. Low, deep houses, 
surrounded with spacious verandas or galleries, shaded 
by clusters of trees, impervious to the sun but not to 
the breeze, are pleasant noon-day retreats. And beneath 
the towering pecan, or the graceful sycamore, or the 
straggliDg fig-tree, dark with heavy foliage, trifling is 
the inconvenience felt at any time from the rays of an 
almost vertical sun. One should stand unprotected in 
some unsheltered thoroughfare, to feel somewhat of the 
broiling, sweltering, maddening heat, to which are due 
our sugar and cotton and coffee. 

But it is not so easy to guard against the effects of 
unusual heat, especially when it alternates with copious 
rains, as was the case in the summer of 1878. Early in 
August, the old people began to say with many a shrug: 
**'Tis always damp now — 'tis yellow-fever weather." 



THE CKOSS OF THE SOUTH. 69 

The gay ones jested about Yellow Jack, and Bronze 
John, and the Saffron Plague, and the Knight with the 
Orange Plume, but such jesting soon became ghastly. 
Ere September began, the plague was epidemic. Be- 
fore October waned, scarcely a household in New Or- 
leans was left unvisited. No just idea of the nature 
and treatment of the mysterious blood-poisoning that 
seems to constitute yellow fever, has yet been attained. 
Never was a greater number of contradictory theories 
broached in connection with any other subject. No 
sooner was one adopted than some new development 
upset it. Yellow fever is contagious — yellow fever is 
not contagious, — it is indigenous — it is exotic, — it is 
propagated by germs — it is not propagated by germs, — 
it came from damp weather — it came from bad drain- 
age, — it came from Cuba — it didn't come at all, — chil- 
dren take it — children do not take it, — Creoles take it — 
Creoles do not take it, — negroes take it — negroes do not 
take it. It is to be treated by heating applications — 
no, by cooling, — by depletion — no, by repletion. Em- 
inent scientific men supported each view as it was 
advanced, but the Southern physicians have not yet 
unanimously decided upon anything concerning it. 
Several still maintain that it is brought hither Avith 
many precious things from the West Indian Isles. A 
few would make the Gulf stream responsible for its ap- 
pearance on the fruitful shores of Louisiana. 

Nor were theories, however wild, Avithout their mar- 
tyrs. A New York doctor, stricken with yellow fever, 
died on the application of his remedy to himself. An 
English doctor, stricken in like manner, died while be- 
ing treated with his own newly discovered and unfailing 
specific. In short, I believe that every physician who 
came from a distance to treat the fever-stricken, with au 



70 THE CROSS OF THE SOUTH. 

''infallible remedy," was amoDg the first to illustrate 
the worthlessness of the same, when the burning blood 
in his own veins admonished him: Physician, heal thy- 
self. From personal observation, it would appear to 
me, 1. That yellow fever is, under certain conditions, 
indigenous; 2. That it is not contagious. And I believe 
that if the streets and household premises of New Or- 
leans were kept as clean as those of Boston, yellow fever 
might be an occasional, but would never become an ep- 
idemic visitor. There is surely water enough for this 
purpose in the gigantic river that laves the coast of 
Louisiana. But the drainage of the Crescent City is as 
difficult as it is important. And the City fathers have 
not yet found out a perfect method of drainage for a 
town which is often several feet lower than the waters 
that encompass it. 

The milder attacks of yellow fever do not, apparently, 
involve so much suffering as an ordinary bad headache. 
Its more malignant types are among the most excru- 
ciating maladies from which the poor human frame can 
suffer. Most cases, however, recover; and a majority 
of those who die, die of relapse. No disease is more 
difficult to nurse. For weeks after recovery, danger of 
relapse lingers about the convalescent. 

Wherever this awful pestilence spreads, a panic fol- 
lows it. Anguish and death are its accompaniments. 
Households are extinguished as by a breath, and fam- 
ily names completely obliterated. Orphans are left 
desolate; widows mourn in helpless sorrow for strong 
and loving husbands; parents are made childless. It 
does its work with fearful rapidity. It would seem as 
though the mighty change was wrought by the potent 
wand of some evil magician. But yesterday that young 
couple were happy in each other's love; " their children 



THE CROSS OF THE SOUTH. 71 

as young plants of olive trees round about their table." 
Fever seizes tlie husband, the wife sinks through weari- 
ness, the baby's little waxen figure soon fills a tiny cof- 
fin. The fever fiend even robs the parents' darling of 
the beauty of death, for decomposition quickly sets in. 
The children are now unkempt and neglected. Droop- 
ing and dispirited, they seek their mother's arms. But 
she is no longer able to clasp them to her heart; for the 
first time in their young lives, she seems unconscious of 
their little griefs. A week later, the health oflS.cers have 
fumigated the premises, and the landlord's notice is up 
— House to Let. How many such cases have I not 
known ! And still sadder ones, when my hands removed 
the sprightly babe from the cold, dead arms of a fair, 
young mother! 

Well does the poet ask, concerning children : " What 
should they know of death ?" How terrible would it be 
if these poor babes of the epidemic could realize that 
they are alone in the world! Happily, in their infant 
loveliness, they know nothing of the awful losses they 
sustain. They laugh as merrily, and crow as gaily, in 
the arms of a kind stranger, as if the proud mother of 
other days smiled on their infantine gambols. And 
truly this is but just. Children have a right to their 
childhood. Joy is the special attribute of that season 
of innocence. Like Tobias, on whose household the 
angel Eaphael poured the gift of joy, children live in 

joy- 
Mother Church prescribes a burial service for chil- 
dren; but it is a liturgy of praise, not a song of lamen- 
tation. All creatures are called upon to praise and 
bless the Lord, because of the precious darling whom 
He has taken to Himself in all the beauty of innocence. 
The death of a child is for the sorrow-stricken parents 



72 THE CEOSS'OF THE SOUTH. 

a siiTsum corda. But even the yellow fever lias its 
bright side. It has done a noble work throughout the 
land. There were those in the South who thought that 
the prosperous North owed them reparation for the 
ruined homes and plundered hearths of the Civil War. 
Even they must admit that a noble atonement has been 
made. In these days of sickly sentimentalism, when so 
much is said and so little is done, it is consoling to re- 
flect on the wonderful brotherly love which the sorrows 
of the Southland awoke throughout the country. Sym- 
pathy and assistance flowed in upon the stricken from 
all quarters. Every breast throbbed with a heaven- 
inspired charity. That Catholic priests should ad- 
minister the sacraments at the risk of their lives, is only 
their duty. That Sisters of Mercy should stand by the 
plague-stricken until they themselves fell, is doing 
'^ nothing more than is appointed them." No epidemic 
of any kind, in any clime, has ever seen one of them 
falter, from the novice of sixteen to the venerable jubi- 
larian; for God, who gives them their vocation, gives 
them, with the blessed habit they are privileged to wear, 
grace to fulfill all its requirements to the uttermost. 
But, during this appalling visitation, God be praised, 
heroism was not confined to any class. The lowly, who 
had only their time to give, gave it. The hard-working, 
who could not spare their time, gave their mite. The 
rich gave out of their abundance; and fashionable la- 
dies, fair of face and regal in form, sought the fetid at- 
mosphere of death, and bent over the sufferers with 
maternal love. In short, heroism seemed rather the 
rule than the exception; and were I to make a record of 
the heroes of the epidemic, many of the physicians of 
the south would rank high in the category. One good 
feature of the yellow fever is that it does not keep the 



THE CROSS OF THE SOUTH. 73 

interested parties long in suspense. The odd days are 
said to be the fatal ones, and patients who get over the 
fifth day ought to recover, if there be no imprudence in 
taking nourishment and no neglect on the part of nurses. 

Not pretending to any technical knowledge of this 
strange disease, I speak solely of the results of my own 
observation. I have seen cases in which the hideous 
''black vomit," from which the disease {yomito) takes its 
name, appeared early on the third day, or even sooner. 
This is a most grave symptom, though not necessarily 
a fatal one. The putrid blood, popularly called black 
vomit, resembles coffee-grounds in appearance, though 
I have seen it come up black as pure coffee from the 
mouth of a coffee-pot. But though yellow fever has 
many phases, it is always quickly over, like the Mexican 
plague, which is equivalent to it or identical with it. 
"Ah," said an old man to the writer, " I have just been 
to the cemetery to see my wife's grave; and I heard 

young H , who buried his wife yesterday, telling the 

sexton not to bury any one over her, for he meant to 
raise a head-stone and plant flowers around her grave 
in winter, as soon as he got work." Four days later, the 

slender funeral procession of "young H "wound 

its way under the weeping willows. His baby, a little 
beauty of fifteen months, fair as a snow-flake and blithe 
as a spring bird, is now our adopted child. 

Yellow fever has been a blessiug, though in a horri- 
ble guise. It has knit together the once sundered peo- 
ple of North and South, as the soul of Jonathan was 
knit to the soul of David, and effaced all bitter recol- 
lections between the Blue and the Gray. It has inspired 
a splendid generosity in the victors and a noble grati- 
tude in the vanquished. To the Church it has done 
the work of an Evangelist; for those whom the Church 



74 THE CROSS OF THE SOUTH. 

commissioned to go fortli among the plague-stricken, in 
her name, have painted Christ to men. It has done, 
also, the work of an Apostle, for they brought men to 
Christ. It has been as a last grace to many a prodigal. 
It has awakened a strong sense of dependence on the 
Supreme Being who wounds but to heal; who chastises 
his children in mercy and in love, because he is their 
Father. It has strengthened and ennobled the good, 
and brought sinners weeping to the feet of His offended 
Majesty. Never was there a greater revival of piety. 
Chastisement did what, alas! love had not effected. 
Crowds thronged the churches at the early masses. 
The Holy Table was surrounded with pious, trusting 
souls. Eager worshipers knelt around the tabernacle, 
beseeching the hidden God to show mercy and protec- 
tion to all whom they held near and dear on earth. 

0, Felix Culpa! Speaking of the sin of Adam, the 
Church cries out, in an excess of gratitude and love : 
" O, happy fault, which deserved so great a Redeemer!" 
In a kindred spirit, we many reverently apostrophize 
the plague which has desolated our homes : O, blessed 
scourge, which opened heaven for many of the dead, 
and diew honey from the rock, and oil from the flinty 
stone, in the land of the living! "Whatever secondary 
causes brought it among us, God was the primary cause. 
There is no evil in the city, saith the Prophet, but the 
Lord hath done it. Divine wrath was tempered by 
mercy. Is not the good it has evoked greater than even 
the misery it has entailed? The same God who gave the 
South patience to endure, gave the North generosity to 
relieve. " Thou hast done many wonders, O Lord, my 
God! and in Thy thoughts there is none like unto 
Thee." 

And we, who have seen many fair, young creatures — 



NOETH AND SOUTH. 75 

this week working beside us, next week lying side by 
side on the same bier — the altars covered with white 
flowers and draped with silver, emblematic of their purity 
— creatures in whom were centered so many lofty hopes 
and such a holy ambition, as we recall them lying on 
couches darkened with their heart's-blood in excruci- 
ating agony, but sublime resignation and joy — even we 
can follow in spirit to a fairer world than this, those 
precious ones who have gone before us with the sign of 
Faith, and rest in the sleep of peace. We can say a 
Deo Gratias for their early translation from the miseries 
of earth to the glories of heaven. Grant them, O Lord, 
eternal rest, and let perpetual light shine upon them. 
But we who live, let us bless the Lord! 



NOETH AND SOUTH. 

By Mrs. L. Virginia French. 

They planted them together — our gallant sires of old — 
Though one was crowned with crystal snows and one with 

solar gold; 
They planted them together — on the world's majestic height, 
At Saratoga's deathless charge, at Eutaw's stubborn fight. 
At midnight on the dark redoubt, 'mid plunging shot and 

shell — 
At noontide gasping in the crush of battle's bloody swell — 
With gory hands and reeking brows, amid the mighty fray. 
Which surged and swelled around them, on that memorable 

day, 
When they planted Independence, as a symbol and a sign, 
They struck deep soil and planted the Palmetto and the Pine ! 



76 THE MAY-FLOWER. 



THE MAY-FLOWER. 

By Eev. Dr. P. A. Chadbourne. 

Thou bonny gift of northern climes, 

Nestling beneath the snow, 
"Waiting the blue-bird's joyful note 

To bid thy flowerets blow; 

What mem'ries wake at thy command, 
Of childhood's life and home ! 

And hoary age may learn from thee 
Of other life to come. 

Fair spreads thy never-withering leaf. 

Beneath the oak and pine, 
Its green, unchanged by wintry storms. 

Adorns thy russet vine. 

Thy clustering buds unfold their tints 
And greet the morning sun, 

With odors like the prayers of saints. 
That rise before the Throne. 

Oh, bravest flower of early spring! 

Long may thy lessons last, 
And bid me hope for nobler life, 

When wintry death is past. 



THE LAST DAYS OF CHARLES LEE. 77 

THE LAST DATS OF CHAELES LEE. 

By Johk Esten Cooke. 

On the side of a road in the valley of Virginia, not far 
from the Potomac, stands a small, poor house, crouch- 
ing down on a knoll, overshadowed by a few trees. It 
is the picture of poverty and neglect; and the spot is 
the loneliest of the lonely, although a little village is 
not far off. The road is followed by few travelers, and 
these few scarcely glance at the house as they pass, — at 
the dilapidated fence, the path through the grass, the 
low porch with rotting floor, the squat stone-gables, and 
the chimney from which no smoke rises. Loneliness 
and desolation reign here: the creeping shadows and 
the leaves of the gnarled trees alone move. The house 
is there in the winter nights and the summer days, ob- 
scure and forgotten, — and yet a man once lived here 
whose name was famous in two hemispheres. 

This man was General Charles Lee, the rival, in his 
own estimation at least, of Washington, and the sinister 
hero of Monmouth, where his long career suddenly 
ended, as a drama ends on the fall of the curtain. Lee 
came to drag out his last days here, after the battle 
which resulted in his disgrace; and not far off was an- 
other home, called "Traveler's Rest," where General 
Gates, another aspiriug Englishman, took refuge after 
the semi-disgrace of Camden. These two wrecks of 
vessels once strong and famous, w^ere cast ashore at 
nearly the same spot. Lee was the more remarkable 
man of the two; and a rare work published in London 
toward the end of the last century, furnishes many an- 
ecdotes and personal details of him, which I shall use 
here, adding to them what I have collected in the neigh- 
borhood of the house I have tried to describe. 



78 THE LAST DAYS OF CHAELES LEE. 

Lee belonged to the English gentrj^, his father being 
John Lee, Esq., of Dernhall, in Chestershire, and his 
mother a daugiiter of Sir Henry Bunbury, baronet. He 
was born in the year 1731, and entered the English 
army with a commission when he w^as eleven years old. 
His first military experience was in America, in 1755, 
when he went with Braddock on his ill-fated march to 
Fort Duquesne; after which he served in Canada, and 
then as major in Portugal, where he led a desperate as- 
sault on a Moorish fortress; afterwards he returned to 
England. Never was man more restless and antagonis- 
tic than this young Englishman, and his pen was as 
trenchant as his sword or his temper. He attacked the 
Ministry then and afterwards, in terms so violent and 
bitter that he was long supposed to be the author of the 
letters of ''Junius." He fell into disgrace, and his 
restless spirit fretted like a sword-edge against the scab- 
bard. He went to Poland, where he secured the warm 
friendship of King Stanislaus Augustus, who made him 
a general, and intrusted him with important operations 
against Bussia and Turkey. Thence he w-ent to Italy, 
where he fought duels, hobbled about tortured by gout, 
and continued to attack the English ministry, then oc- 
cux^ied with the American problem. He was or seemed 
to be a warm sympathizer with the Colonies; and re- 
turning at last to England, embarked in 1773 for Amer- 
ica, where his reputation had preceded him. Was he 
honest and unselfish in his espousal of the cause of the 
Americans? At least he was looking in that direction 
before the revolution, and in 1767 he wrote to a friend 
from Warsaw : " I wish by practice to make myself a 
soldier, for purposes honest but which I shall not men- 
tion." It is pretty certain that he had determined 
deliberately to offer his sword to the Colonies; and 



THE LAST DAYS OF CHARLES LEE. 79 

there is little doubt that lie expected to become their 
leader. It was a glittering ambitioD, — the leadership 
of three million rebels against the empire which had 
not rewarded him and which he hated so. His recep- 
tion seemed to justify his hopes. He was greeted with 
enthusiasm; the American leaders appreciated at their 
full value his military experience and ability. He vis- 
ited the great cities, conferring everywhere with promi- 
nent men, and on a visit to Washington at Mount 
Yernon, met another gentleman adventurer from Eng- 
land, Horatio Gates, who had also come to offer his 
sword to the Colonies. Here he left behind him an 
unsavory impression. He was brusque, careless and 
unceremonious, even in presence of Mrs. Washington, 
and is said to have stalked through her drawing rooms, 
followed by his dogs, with little regard for the lady's 
wishes or feelings. 

From Mount Yernon Lee passed to Boston, and 
'* blazed forth as a Whig of the first magnitude." In 
May, 1775, we find him at Philadelphia, becoming 
''daily a greater enthusiast in tlie cause of liberty." 
His vigorous pen had defended the Colonies in a widelj^- 
read pamphlet: he had "blazed forth" in all companies 
as the friend of America, and his presence at Philadel- 
phia explained what everything meant. Congress was 
in session, and the question was, who should be ap- 
pointed Commander-in-Chief? This post he doubtless 
expected; and Washington's appointment in his place 
probably laid the foundation of the bitter enmity and 
insubordination which he afterwards displayed. He 
was, however, made Major-General, and proceeded to 
Boston. He had played boldly for the great stake and 
lost, but submitted. It was done with a bad grace, but 
there was no other course to follow. So Major-General, 



80 THE LAST DAYS OF CHARLES LEE. 

not General-iu-Cliief, Charles Lee took liis place in the 
struggle. He served in the North, then as the war went 
on, in the South; afterward, in the autumn of 1776, he 
rejoined Washington at New York, and commanded the 
rear -guard of the army when the city was evacuated. 

From this moment began the series of operations, or 
failures to operate, which culminated in the affair of 
Monmouth and the ruin of the aspiring Englishman. 
Washington retreated through the Jerseys, leaving Lee 
in Westchester County, in the vicinity of New York, in 
command of 7000 men. The opportunity had come at 
last — for what? For one of two things: either for be- 
traying the American cause, or striking a blow which 
should throw the fame of Washington in the shade. If 
the charges afterwards brought against Lee, of treason 
to his flag, were true charges, then little doubt remains 
that his plans were formed at this time. No man be- 
comes a traitor suddenly. Even Arnold reflected long, 
and took time to allow his sinister project to infuse 
itself into his mind, before he resolved to act. 

Whether Lee, at this time, was or was not true to the 
cause, is not demonstrated by documentary evidence; but 
his movements were strange, indeed. Washington, in 
great straits in the Jerseys, incessantly called on him 
to rejoin him. Lee replied by trivial excuses, and lagged 
in rear near New York, subjecting the cause to two 
dangers, — that of being cut off himself, and that of 
Washington's defeat through his failure to unite with 
him. He or his friends intimated that his design w^as 
to recapture New York, to attack the enemy's rear, to 
perform some resplendent exploit to redeem the nearly 
lost cause from ruin. Possibly. He alleged, at least, 
that his intention was to '* reconquer the Jerseys;" 
but whatever his design was, he disobeyed the repeated 



THE LAST DATS OF CHARLES LEE. 81 

orders of liis superior. He moved like a tortoise when 
he was compelled to move, from fear of provoking Wash- 
ington to one of his dangerous outbursts. But it was 
a sullen and bitter obedience, and only half-obedience 
after all. Washington ordered him in express terms to 
move by one route and he moved by another. Then 
one morning at a small town called Baskingridge, he 
was surprised and captured, and hurried off in his 
slippers and dressing gown, behind a clattering trooper, 
to the British head-quarters, where the thunder of can- 
non soon after svards announced his arrival. 

Was this capture preconcerted between him and the 
enemy? People said so. The house he had slept in 
was three miles from his army, and he scarcely had a 
guard. As on many other occasions, General Charles 
Lee had at least the misfortune of having appearances 
against him. He may have been true to the flag he was 
fighting under, — let us give him the benefit of the doubt, 
at least. He was well treated by the British in the city 
of New York, released on parole, and paid the atten- 
tions due to his rank. Now comes the question on 
which hangs the solution of every mystery in regard to 
him : Was he or was he not the author of the paper 
apparently in his handwriting, indorsed *' Mr. Lee's 
Plan?" 

In the case of every human being in the world, 
charged with crime, there is some one central point 
which it is necessary to establish clearly before you can 
convict him. On this all hinges, and the name and 
fame of Charles Lee hinge on the paper referred to. To 
sum up what seems to be the truth, its authenticity is 
not clearly established. The allegation is, that on 
March 29, 1777, whilst a prisoner in the hands of the 
enemy, he submitted to the English commander a plan 
6 



82 THE LAST DAYS OF CHAELES LEE. 

for the reconquest of America, by the advance of Bur- 
gojne ill the north to paralyze New England, and an 
expedition up the Chesapeake to cut the two sections 
in Maryland. This paper which is now in existence, 
indorsed "Mr. Lee's Plan," by — it is said — Henry 
Strachey, secretary of the Koyal Commission, is alleged 
to be in the handwriting of General Charles Lee. If 
so, General Charles Lee was a traitor. But did he write 
the paper? He is dead and cannot defend himself. 
There is only the presumption, and presumption is ''an 
argument, strong but not demonstrative," says Dr. 
Johnson. We are justified in measuring its force here 
by Lee's course before and afterwards. Even doing so, 
the case is "not proved," legally speaking, nor is the 
contrary established. 

In May, 1778, Lee was exchanged and resumed his 
command. The battle of Monmouth followed, and here 
the smouldering suspicion which seems to have gradu- 
ally increased, culminated in a full conviction in many 
minds, of his treason. The British army was retiring 
from Philadelphia, aixl a council of war was held iii the 
American camp to decide whether the enemy should be 
attacked. Lee opposed the attack, and when it was de- 
termined upon, his cooperation was plainly cold and 
unwilling, or it seemed to be. He resigned command 
of the advance, to Lafayette, but subsequently re-claimed 
it, and a collision with the enemy ensued. Washington 
was in rear, advancing with the main body to the heights 
where he intended to deliver battle. He had mounted 
his horse and was riding forward, confident of the suc- 
cess of his dispositions, when he met stragglers, then 
squads, then whole companies rushing to the rear. That 
sight must have brought a chill to the stout heart. He 
had received a singular warning on the night before. 



THE LAST DAYS OF CHARLES LEE. 83 

Doctor Griffith, afterwards elected Bishop of Virginia, a 
person of the highest character, had requested a private 
interview with him, and said to him: "I have sought 
this interview to warn your Excellency against the con- 
duct of Major-general Lee in to-morrow's battle. While 
I am not permitted to divulge the names of the authori- 
ties from whom I have obtained my information, I can 
assure you that they are of the very first order." 

Did these words come to his memory as he was now 
galloping to the front ? The signs of retreat increased 
at every step. From beyond a causeway over a stream 
in front, came confused shouting and the discharge of 
musketry. Washiugton went on at the full speed of his 
horse. At the causeway two entire regiments appeared 
in full retreat. To his irate demand if the whole corps 
was retreating, the officer in command replied that he 
believed it was. Beyond the causeway a heavy column 
was steadily retiring, and Washington, on fire now with 
anger, demanded why they were retreating. The colonel 
in front was no less irate than himself. 

"I do not know, sir," he said, with the disdain of a 
soldier; "I am retreating hy order T' 

"I never saw the like!" exclaimed another officer; 
and a third, blurting out a violent oath, cried: 

'^ We are flyiug from a shadow!" 

Thus the Americans spoke, with or without reason. 
Washiugton raged and went on. Suddenly he found 
himself facing Lee, and checked his horse so violently 
that he was thrown upon his haunches. 

'^I desire to know the meaning of this disorder and 
confusion!" he cried. 

Lee scowled at him; the insult of the tone probably 
enraged him. 

"What means this ill-timed prudence?" Washington 
exclaimed. 



84 THE LAST DAYS OF CHARLES LEE. 

' ' No one possesses more of that rascally virtue than 
your Excellency!" retorted the enraged Lee. Washing- 
ton's wrath thereupon mastered him. 

"You poltroon!" he exclaimed, *'I have certain in- 
formation that it was only a strong covering party!" 

" That may be," growled Lee, "but it was stronger 
than mine, and I did not think proper to run such a 
risk." 

Washington controlled his anger by a violent effort, 
and said sternly: 

"I am very sorry that you undertook the command, 
unless you meant to fight the enemy." 

"I did not think it prudent to bring on a general en- 
gagement," returned Lee. 

" Whatever your opinion may have been, I expected 
my orders would have been obeyed," was the cold reply. 

All had occurred in a few moments. There was 
no time for fui^ther colloquy. The enemy were pressing 
the Americans hotly, and Alexander Hamilton, thor- 
oughly convinced of the treason of Lee, leaped from his 
horse and drew his sword, exclaiming: 

"We are hetrayed! Your Excellency and the army 
are hetrayed! The moment has arrived when every true 
friend of America and her cause must be ready to die 
in her defense." 

The brave Creole had thus coined the situation into 
one sentence, which expressed the feeling of all. Wash- 
ington had cooled as the rest grew hot. 

"Colonel Hamilton," he said to his aide, "you will 
take your horse." 

He then turned to Lee, who was sullenly sitting 
upon his horse before him,, and said briefly: 

"Will you retain the command on this height or not? 
If you will, I will return to the main body and have it 
formed on the next height." 



THE LAST DAYS OF CHAELES LEE. 85 

"It is equal to me wliere I command," growled Lee. 

"I expect you will take proper measures for checking 
the enemy." 

*'Yoar orders shall be obeyed," replied Lee, full of 
wrath and mortification, " and I shall not be the first 
to leave the ground." 

Was this the reply of a brave man who had only 
committed an error of judgmeot, or of a traitor who 
saw the opportunity for his treason escape him, and re- 
turned to his allegiance? It was the reply of a soldier; 
and he kept his word. He re-formed his men, and 
fought stubbornly till the main body was up. He then 
retired in perfect order, and riding up to Washington, 
said: 

" There, sir, are my troops. How is it your pleasure 
that I should dispose of them?" 

He was directed to march them to the rear and rest 
them; and there Lee remained until the end of the bat- 
tle, and the retreat of the enemy. 

Sach was the famous incident of Monmouth whose 
result was the ruin of Charles Lee. He demanded a 
court-martial, and was tried on the charges Of having 
made an "unnecessary, disorderly and shameful re- 
treat," and of writing disrespectful letters to his super- 
iors. He was convicted of both, except that the word 
shameful was omitted, and the words in some instances 
inserted before unnecessary. The sentence was suspen- 
sion from command for one year, subject to the approval 
of Congress. It was approved, and Lee afterwards 
wrote an insulting letter to Congress, which resulted in 
his dismissal from the service. 

So ended the military career of the famous Charles 
Lee. He had purchased a tract of land in the Virginia 
valley, and retired to the small house I have described, 



86 THE LAST DAYS OF CHAKLES LEE. 

to pass liis last days. It was a strange retreat for the 
man who had been the friend of kings. It had no par- 
titions even, and was divided by chalk lines drawn on 
the floor, into a kitchen, sitting-room, chamber, etc. 
Here the old scowling soldier lived with his books and 
dogs, and one servant. General Gates lived at "Trav- 
eler's Rest," a few miles distant, in disgrace like Lee, 
and they sometimes visited each other, but Mrs. Gates 
seems not to have been a lady very much to Lee's taste. 
It is said that on one occasion, when she was quarreling 
as usual Avith her husband, she appealed to Lee for his 
opinion in the matter at issue, and of herself. 

''Madam," Lee replied, with his most sarcastic smile 
and a bow, ''you are a tragedy in private life and, — a 
farce to all the world ! " 

So neighborhood tradition relates, and the reply is 
characteristic. Sometimes Lee was coarse even in his 
denunciation. To a gentleman of South Carolina, he 
wrote — "I was taught to consider you only as a fantas- 
tic, pompous dramatis personce, a mere Malvolio : but I 
find that you are as malignant a scoundrel as you are 
universally allowed to be a ridiculous and disgusting 
coxcomb." 

Weary of the tedium of his dull life here, he wrote 
his famous "Queries, Political and Military," attacking 
Washington, and published them in the city of Balti- 
more. But no one took any notice of him, least of all 
Washington. Tradition in the neighborhood relates 
that the great commander bore no ill will toward him 
in his retirement, and one day, on a visit to the valley, 
sent word that he was coming to call upon him. Lee 
sent no reply, and on the day appointed he pinned a 
piece of paper on his door, containing the words, "No 
meat cooked here to-day," and rode away. 



ENFOKCEMENT OF LAW. 87 

Sucli was this bitter, eccentric soldier iu liis dreary 
home by the roadside. At last his life became intoler- 
able. He grew tired of all things, — of his books, his 
hunting and his dogs, which, it is said, he had blas- 
phemingiy named after the Holy Trinity and the twelve 
apostles. The vast solitudes of the mountains oppressed 
him. He resolved to sell his estate, and went to Phil- 
adelphia, where he took lodgings in the "Old Slate 
Roof House, "formerly the residence of Benedict Arnold 
when he was commandant in the city; and here, in the 
autumn of 1782, he was seized with a shivering, suc- 
ceeded by fever, which carried him off iu a few days. 
His last thoughts, like Napoleon's, were of battle. He 
went back in memory to the assault on Ticonderoga, 
and exclaimed in his delirium : 

"Stand by me, my brave grenadiers!" 

So he ended — like a soldier: dreaming of battle, if 
not dying with harness on his back. 



ENFOECEMENT OF LAW. 

By Eev. Dr. Howaud Ckosby. 

A Democratic State needs, besides its government 
elected by the people, a voluntary association of well 
known and respectable citizens, whose one object, as an 
association, shall be to see that the laws, especially tbe 
criminal laws, are enforced. They would be a Vigil- 
ance Committee in a conservative and not an insurrec- 
tionary sense. They would act in behalf of law and in 
the channels of law. The knowledge of their watchful 
position would quicken the sense of duty in police offi- 
cers, prosecuting attorneys and judges, and would 



88 ENFOKCEMENT OF LAW. 

streDgtlien tlie moral sentiment of the community. 
Elected officers naturally fall into careless liabits, even 
when tliey escape the temptations to dishonesty. The 
best of them need the spur. Human nature teaches a 
public officer to do just as little as is consistent with 
appearances and the drawing of his salary. He needs 
an overseer. What is everybody's business is nobody's 
business. Hence we should have the *' Law and Order 
League," or " Society for the Prevention of Crime," or 
" Association to Enforce the Laws," in every organized 
community. It would maintain itself and accomplish 
its work only as its members were men whom the com- 
munity trusted. Otherwise they would prove a cipher. 
They could do no good, neither could they do harm. If 
they were unknown and untrusted men, neither the 
community nor the officers of the law would pay any at- 
tention to them. Their power would reside in their 
moral character and reputation. 

Such an organization is not to be the outgrowth of 
constitutional or statute law, but the spontaneous de- 
velopment of a free and enlightened people; a natural 
process of healthy growth, approving itself to every 
honest citizen. Organizations of this sort are now 
springing up in very many towns and the result is al- 
ready gratifying. Their formation marks a new era in 
the history of government, and gives a cheering augury 
for the future. 



RECOMPENSE. 89 



KECOMPENSE. 

By Dora Darmoore. 
A FAIR isle smiled upon, the sea. 
From its mountain-tops and shady vales, 
From its meadows and its forests green, 
There seemed to come a song of praise 
That God had made the earth so beautiful. 
The little streams that in their mossy beds. 
Like threads of melted pearls, crept to the sea, 
Sang softly to themselves a hymn of peace; 
And where the modest violet looked up, 
With blue eyes moistened with the glistening dew, 
The lark had built his nest. And when the dawn 
Came smiling forth in robes of roseate light, 
He, soaring up on pinions strong and free, 
"Warbled his greeting to the coming day. 

Upon a mountain's brow that overlooked the sea, 

A single oak lifted its proud head toward heaven. 

Its branches, thick and ioterlacing, bore 

A wealth of foliage in their clasping arms; 

And 'round its fair and shapely trunk 

The green vines clustered with a fond embrace; 

And 'mid its sheltering boughs the blithe birds dwelt, 

And sang their merry songs from year to year. 

There came to this fair isle amid the sea, 

A wanderer, tempest-tossed, and bowed with grief, 

Seeking for that which he had failed to find 

Amid the world's great conflicts — Peace. 

" Ah! here, at last," he cried, "I find the home, 

The bright Elysium I so long have sought, 

And it shall henceforth be to me my rest. 

No envious strife, no hollow friendships here! 

Here proud Ambition finds no crown to win. 



90 EECOMPENSE. 

And on these fair and fragrant plains.' 
The iron heel of War has never trod. 
'Neath this majestic oak I'll make my home; 
And, when oppressed with heat of summer's sun, 
Beneath its spreading boughs I'll seek repose. 
And life shall be one long and happy dream." 

The swift-winged years have sped away. 

And to that fair and fertile isle has come 

That stern old despot — Change. 

B3' his decree, the peace and quiet 

That so long had reigned, departed; 

And in their stead. Commerce and Trade 

And Strife and Envy came. The little brooks 

That crept so softly down in their slow course 

Toward the waiting sea, have larger grown: 

Great, brawling streams, across whose floods 

Is thrown many an arch of stone, 

'Long whose banks arises the clang 

Of iron wheels, revolving on a thousand shafts 

That seem the wrathful muttering of a giant power. 

Upon the emerald plains where the wild daisies grew, 

Majestic buildings lift their storied heads. 

And lofty towers and slender church spires point 

Towards the azure depths, where once was heard 

The blithesome lark caroling to the sun. 

In yon sequestered cove, where the lone sea-bird came 

To dip her weary wings, points many a towering mast. 

From every verdant vale or mossy hillside come 

The sound of human life and the busy tread of feet. 

At sunset, near the shadow of an oak 
Whose scathed and withered limbs 
Fling their weird shapes towards heaven, 
And down whose seamed and rugged sides 
The lightning^'s blighting touch has fallen, 
An aged man stands, leaning on his staff. 



RECOMPENSE. 91 

Upon his brow are lines of care and grief, 

But from liis calm, dark eye there beams a light 

That speaks of peace, content, of triumph over self. 

And as he gazes at the city at his feet, 

And notes the busy throng go hurrying by. 

His mind, awakened to the thought, goes back 

To the fair morn, long past, when he, 

A saddened, misanthropic man, upon this very spot. 

The selfish wish had breathed : 

Uncared for here to live, unwept for here to die. 

Selfish, I say; for where the duties, then. 

That come to each of us, and all. 

If not amid the sorrow, sin, and care 

Of this great world? The birds of calm, 

That sing on sun-bright days. 

Are often found where the fierce storm-clouds blow; 

And on the windiest hill, the tiniest flower 

Lifts its brave head, nor heeds not sleet nor snow. 

And shall a strong, immortal soul grow faint 

Because a few dark clouds obscure its sun ? 

And thus the old man said : 
The duties which I fled have followed me; 
And the very tree where I had hoped to rest, 
And idly dream away my useless life. 
Becomes a blackened tablet of my blasted hopes, 
And I have only learned, when youth has fled, 
That joy, content, and peace, are to be found 
Amid the world's great conflicts, when they burn 
With a ten-fold luster, caught from the beams 
Of the bright star, — Usefulness.'" 



92 ' ECHOES. 



ECHOES. 

By Eev. Dr. Cn^iRLEs F. Deems. 

The marvelous sweetness of echoes is a phenomenon 
which has been often noticed. In mountainous regions 
— in some parts of the Alps, for instance — a few simple 
notes drawn from a shepherd's pipe, are taken up and 
sent from hill to mount and from rock to cliff, and re- 
duplicated and intertwined into the most enchanting 
melodies. 

Such results cannot be produced in a small room by 
any performer from any instrument. It is when he is 
making music out-doors and for others, that Nature 
brings her arrangements into a powerful and musical 
orchestral following of a simple leadership. Then, out 
of five or six notes of the gamut, evoked by an unscien- 
tific soul from a reed plainer than Pan's, she makes 
choirs of boys singing in a cathedral, companies of 
nuns chanting in a convent, and bugle calls, and all the 
highest capabilities of the organ, until the hearer listens 
in breathless delight, wondering whether it is heaven or 
earth that is thus set a-singing. 

As in everything else, there is a moral correspond- 
ence with the natural phenomenon. It is thus with all 
our speeches and all our deeds. We really have the 
least good of those things which we do entirely for our- 
selves, and the most pleasure of those things which we 
do for others. We seem almost utterly to fail to re- 
ceive what we take to ourselves, and strangely incapable 
of impoverishing ourselves by giving to others. What 
we take we lose; what we give we gain. The whole 
social and spiritual world seems to have been con- 
structed on the idea of echoes. 



ECHOES. 93 

Down among men's most materialistic pursuits, me- 
clianical labor and tlie severities of trade life, this system 
finds perpetual illustrations. The man who sets himself 
to the work of conducting a business, whether large or 
small, for his own special, individual gain, soon finds 
that he is like the man who has carried his instrument 
into a small room, closely shut and strongly walled, 
that he may have all the music folded down upon his 
own ears. It soon grows dull, monotonous and stale. 
The man who strives to make his business pecuniarily 
profitable to very many people is the out-door musician, 
to whom the echoes reply, reduplicating and multiply- 
iDg his little capital a thousand fold. He grows most 
rapidly rich who most speedily sends pecuniary profits 
to the largest number of other operators. 

The same holds good for our pleasures. There are 
none who have not had some experience of hunting 
pleasure for themselves. It is so toilsome, so unpro- 
ductive, so unsatisfactory. So much so have men found 
it, that we compromise by endeavoring to make the " 
hunt socially, in groups, such as picnics and similar 
parties. But even then it is only a partial success. 

Pleasure is like love, and love is 

**Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought: 
Love gives itself, and is not bought.'" 

It is when we do not call it that pleasure comes. It 
flies the seeker and seeks the worker. It is when we 
are least thoughtful of ourselves and most intent on 
giving pleasure to others, that we find it coming to us. 
It is not our own music; it is an echo. We speak a 
word ; it comes back whole sentences. We utter a note; 
from crag and scar it comes modulated and rythmic, 
the variations of the notes wrought into strains. 

In our personal cares and troubles we seek the con- 



94 ECHOES. 

solatiou of philosophy. The logic is sound. Our ar- 
guments ought to strengthen and comfort us, but some- 
how they do not. In our solitary chamber we grow 
heavier and more sorrowful, reasoning upon our youth 
and strength and elastic constitutions and troops of 
friends. Even those friends fail to make us happier. 
They come to comfort us and go away brighter than 
when they came, but leaving us darker. Out of the 
darkness we go into busy life, hear of some stricken 
heart, and see some weak shoulder bending lower and 
lower under its burdens. We run to help the burden- 
bearer and our own heavy hearts grow lighter. We 
speed away to cheer the stricken heart, and our souls 
grow musical to our own sorrowful spirit, and we hear 
in our own words deeper and better things than the lis- 
tener to whom they are addressed. Earth and heaven 
make musical echoes out of the utterances of our own 
hoarse voices. 

Therefore let us go out under the open sky, among 
the grand mountains, which were made for other things 
but which make echoes, and whatever good, brave, kind 
word we speak to others shall return laden with empha- 
sis of delight to our own souls. If we go selfishly 
asking, *'Do you love me?" the playful elfins of the 
echoes will begin their tantalizing begging of "Love 
me! love me!" But if a poor faiiiting heart lies at our 
feet and we shower down tenderness in words, saying, 
''I love you," a thousand musical spirits of the air will 
peal their manifold assurances on our ears, each saying 
iu its own tone, "I love you! I love you! I love you!'"* 

Let us waken the echoes. 



MY LITTLE SISTEBS. 95 

MY LITTLE SISTEKS. 

By Fhancis Alexander Durivage. 

Gazing intent in memory's magic glass, 
I see two lovely childish figures pass — 
Lucy and Annie — images most dear, 
Tho' lost to eartlil}^ sight for many a year. 
Brief in this li:"e was their allotted space, 
To glad our hearts with purity and grace. 
God gave and took, and to his angel host 
Added the treasure that we prized the most. 
Sinless aud white, each blessed little heart 
Heard the Divine permission to depart. 
As I recall the little girls, 'tis given 
To picture their unclouded bliss in Heaven; 
Their eyes uudimmed by even childish tears, 
God for their Father, angels for their peers. 
Perpetual flowers around their footsteps spring, 
"Where birds of paradise are on the wiug; 
And in the ever-duriug summer days 
Music is one unceasing song of praise. 
The vision passes, to recur again 
"With powder to banish earthly woe and pain. 
My little sisters! Ave shall meet again. 



* * * Throiigli some blunder of my agent, I have but just seen 
your letter. I ask your pardon for what must have seemed great rude- 
ness, while I beg you to believe there is only sincere interest. I send 
you, hereto appended, a sentiment which, I hope, may reach you iu 
time, and I am, with best wishes, 

Faithfully yours, 

Anna E. Dickinson. 

The world belongs to those who take it, not to tliose 
who wish for it, or cry for it, or beg for it; but to those 
who put strong hands upon it, and make it their own. 



96 BE CONTENT. 



BE CONTENT. 

By Mrs. Horace A. Deming. 

Say not life is made of sorrow. 
Say not man was made to mourn, 

Unacknowledged blessiugs, daily, 
Greet our steps at every turn. 

Flowers bloom by brook and way-side. 
Gem the meads and grace the dells. 

Freighting all the air with incense 
From their honey-laden cells. 

Barefoot girl may twine at pleasure, 
'Mid her tangled, sun-burnt hair. 

Garlands fresh, with dew-drops gleaming; 
Nature's jewels Queens might wear. 

Down the fern-clad mountain ^ glancing 
Over cool, green moss aad brake, 

Crystal streams are ever dancing. 
Weary travelers' thirst to slake. 

Every crested wave of ocean 

Comes with Neptune's wealth replete, 
Casting tinted shells and mosses. 

Pearls and corals, at our feet. 

Song-birds everywhere make music; 

Glorious sunbeams round us fall; 
He who notes the sparrow's progress 

Strews his bounties over all. 

Happiness is not exclusive. 
Of no nation, rank or grade; 

Analyzed, its sum is proven 
Of the veriest trifles made. 



OMNIPOTENCE. ' 97 

Are you -wretched, poor and friendless? 

Look on those more wretched still, 
Then give thanks to Him whose mercy 

Saved you from some greater ill. 

What though fortune frown upon you, 

Though she smile on others more! 
Sink not down, an abject craven, 

Her caprices to deplore. 

Few who join her race are winners, 

Many fail to reach the goal; 
If you may not gain life's prizes. 

Be content to act your role. 

Cheerfully, with trust unswerving. 

Take the comfort to your heart: 
'Tis a far, all-seeing wisdom 

That allots to man his part. 

To insure a generous harvest. 

With what care the soil is tilled! 
Not your place in life is reckoned, 

But the way in which 'tis filled. 



OMNIPOTENCE. 

By PfiOF. Samuel S. HALDERiAisr. 

(Translation from the Greek.) 

The day and night proclaim thy praise; 

The earth thou deck'st with flowers, 
Thy stars through ether send their rays. 

And planets hymn thy jDowers. 

Thy fingers shake the solid ground, 

Thy hand restrains the brine. 
Thy breath drives star-light from its bound. 

Thy nod makes heav'n incline 



98 A BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 

A BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 

By Eev. Dr. Benjamin W. Dwight. 

Life is the wonder ol: all wonders in the created uni- 
verse. All physical things, however minute or gorgeous^ 
find their final completeness in this one marvelous 
mystery. It is easy, indeed, even for a child, to under- 
stand what life is in its aspects and effects; but not for 
the wisest philosophers to define with exactness what it 
actually is, in its own nature. Any one can readily de- 
scribe its elements and issues; but wlio shall describe 
its essence ? It is, wherever seen, to whatever eye be- 
holding it, '^ a thing of beauty" in its own immediate 
and continuous self -presentation; and all forms of love- 
liness have taken on their determinate shape from its 
moulding grasp upon their constituent elements, and its 
active force astir within them. 

And all living things 'imply in their very existence 
some source superior to themselves in time and power. 
They are all of an organized, harmonious conformation, 
part with part, beginning, middle and end, ever run- 
ning, by easy processes of transformation, into and out 
of one another. Design is everywhere manifest, and 
skill shows itself in the mutually combined and sym- 
metrical ordering of wonderfully many inter-dependent 
details. And it is a great, bright, inspiring truth, per- 
vading the whole array of all visible things, that their 
evident uses, and therefore evidently-planned designs, 
are conspicuously beneficent and benevolent. The uni- 
verse is indeed one vast whole, as the Avord universe 
implies in itself — formed by One Mighty Hand to one 
single, great and good end; and it is a rounded aggre- 
gate of beauty, as it seemed to the wondering eye of 
even heathen Greece. Life, like power, implies mind — 



A BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 99 

mind to will, to undertake, to contrive, to control, to 
bless. 

In the varied forms of life many different expressions 
of thought are possible, in specialties of constructive 
skill, as also in outward capabilities of use. Vegetable 
life bears light in every part of the fullness of its bloom. 
It is, in every portion of its fabric, a^ product of the 
light, woven of sunbeams, in the secret processes of 
Nature, and the very distillation, in hue and texture, of 
their effluence. Life is, wherever seen, full of the en- 
ergy of advancing strength in itself, and full, at the 
same time, of the energy of most inspiring suggestions 
to every beholder; while decay and death wear, con- 
trarily, at once, wherever they anywhere appear, entirely 
opposite aspects. 

All the activities of Nature are so stirred and stayed 
by the Great Euler of the universe, that, whatever pre- 
vious forms of life have answered their best possible 
uses, or employed to the full their functions, large or 
limited, in some useful way appointed for them, not 
only soon revert, as if by the compulsion of an inward 
necessity of their own, to their original elements; but 
are speedily caught up also into new and attractive com- 
binations of growing forces, vegetable or animal, for 
some better use, or some brighter or broader self-mani- 
festation. 

Of all living forms, the x^erfection for beauty and 
wonder and power is the human body. The human 
form, the human face, the human eye and the human 
smile, are, each and all, unequaled by anything else of 
like sort to be named under the sun. "Lord! what is 
man, that Thou art mindful of him 1" How great are 
his endowments from above! How grand the divine 
proportions of his being! columnar! temple-like! "Know 



100 A BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 

ye not," saitli Paul, "that ye are the temple of the 
Holy Ghost?" 

Man, standing erect upon the earth, and looking forth 
on the creation around him, or upon the skies over his 
head, is, in himself, an object of commanding beauty; 
but much more when moving, fixed in thought and 
strong in will, over the face of the world, in search of 
its riches of wisdom and knowledge. When seen vigor- 
ously employed with his intellect, and obtaining the 
I'esults of well-bestowed endeavor for something high 
and exalting, he rises to a new demonstration of beauty, 
in a higher sphere of presentation to the eye. Well 
said Humboldt, wdth equal simplicity and terseness of 
expression, ''The finest fruit that earth holds up to its 
Maker's eye, is a man, a true man." 

The noblest form of manifestation of which man is 
capable in himself, and the highest exhibition ever 
made of anything human, is, for its own essential quali- 
ties of either temporary excellence or permanent desir- 
ableness, a beautiful life, beautiful for its bright, moral 
characteristics. Here, every energy of action, every 
sentiment of honor, every soaring impulse of the soul, 
every faculty of contrivance, every element of endur- 
ance, every form of hopeful, cumulative enterprise and 
experience, finds full scope of employment and a free 
opportunity for any separate or combined degree of 
labor bestowed upon their exercise. 

In respect to the thoughts and aims and deeds that 
make up a truly beautiful life, all of earth stand alike 
in privilege, without reference to varieties of personal 
condition or even of personal endowment. Manhood, 
in its highest forms of moral principle and purpose, is 
attainable by all, and in forms that are quiet and lowly 
as truly as in those that are full of conspicuity or of ex- 



A BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 101 

citement. Nowhere is virtue more beautiful than when 
unostentatious, and when manifestly genuine, uncalcu- 
lating, and uniform in its demonstrations of a stable 
existence in the character, and of vigorous, persistent 
life ill action. 

The real poetry of earthly experience has always 
coursed mostly through lowly vales and into little silent 
nooks, away from glitter and glare, and the empty blare 
of attending trumpets, and from noisy vociferators of 
whatever kind. 

Many of the coveted riches of earth are, when long 
sought and at last obtained, quite unsatisfying in them- 
selves, and disappointing to their zealous pursuer. But 
'Surtue is its own reward." The busy toiler for its 
wealth of goodness is, while thinking only of others, 
the most rewarded of all in what he obtains. 

A morally beautiful life is the highest contribution 
that any one can make to the good of the world. It is 
itself immortal. Here, in its ever-newly unfolding 
beauties of life and light, is to be found the true and 
only end of all wealth, and talent, and enterprise, of all 
W' orthy hope and effort, of all genius and art, and of all 
piety and prayer. 

To such an inspiring goal it is pleasant to point, and 
to point joyously, the orphan children of the world. 
"Without father or mother, and often without hope or 
help from earth, feeling themselves deserted and weak, 
and surrounded by darkness, they are yet not without 
light from above; there is help in God; the light of 
hope may burn steady and true for them in the depths 
of their own souls as the light of immortal truth and of 
immortal youth. Let them ever keep faith in God, 
and in their own convictions of Avhat is right, and best, 
and true ; and let them ever keep moving towards what- 



102 A BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 

ever they can anywhere see that is good in itself, and 
striving earnestly towards what is above them. Those 
who dwell in palaces of light, and have all that heart 
and hope can seize of fancied good, can do no better, 
or achieve any higher success in life, after all, than the 
humblest and weakest man to be found upon his 
Maker's footstool. The differences of men in moral 
position are far less than the seeming shows of earthly 
advantage would indicate. 

Let then the forlorn of earth pick up courage, and 
struggle ever bravely onwards and upwards for some- 
thing better than earth ever yields them ; and let the 
prosperous and envied classes be modest, and consid- 
erate, and kind, when they remember how much of all 
that marks their peculiar history cannot possibly last a 
moment longer than it is available for some mere pass- 
ing use, and that they will be called in the end to a 
strict account for the moral ends and qualities of that 
use. 

There are three great words of faith which lie at the 
basis of every worthy, and every beautiful, earthly life : 
the love of Truth, the love of God, and the love of Man. 
The beauty of even the Divine character is its absolute 
expression, at all times, without the least flaw or fail- 
ure, of perfect devotion of feeling and action to the dic- 
tates of exact truth. Any human character that has 
soundness in it, or grandeur, or essential holiness, de- 
rives the inexpressible charm of such a ravishing pos- 
session from the high measure of its conformity, real or 
siipposed, to the claims of pure truth as the rule and 
rhythm of its being. 

And as for *'the love of God shed abroad in the 
heart," as the life and power of every sentiment and de- 
sire of the soul, how great is its uplifting power upo» 



A BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 103 

one's whole consciousness of the glory of existence 
under Him and for Him ! This is the grandest senti- 
ment, for honor and power, that can take possession of 
any fiuite being; and wonderful for joyousness, deep 
and abiding, is the sense of its presence in any heart 
where it reigns, as its one great ruling passion. 

And with the love of truth and of God as the perma- 
nently ruling forces of any heart and life, no other holy 
passion of the soul is needed to give to any mortal 
spirit its full complement of immortal wealth of thought 
and sentiment than the love of man as man. The full 
sense of the universal brotherhood of the race in the 
heart, as one of its tliree final, absolute, and mutually 
inter-dependent motor-forces, in all thought, all pur- 
pose, and all effort, gives such sweetness to personal 
experience, and dignity to personal character, and real 
significance to life, as nothing else in its absence has 
any power to impart. Blessed is he among men whose 
heart is filled to the full with these holy tides of thought 
— the love of Truth, the love of God, and the love of 
Man! 



^ ^ ^ Jy you would be great, revere and imitate, 
like the old Greeks, illustrious men. So far from depre- 
cating hero-worship, I would cultivate it and encourage 
it. No man has ever been a hero who was not first a 
hero-worshipper. Water never rises above its source. 

^ ^ ^ ¥: % ^ ^ 

I find that they build their houses in New York, and 

in Europe also, seven and even ten stories high; yet I 

doubt, after all, if they are much nearer to heaven than 

we in our wigwams of Oregon. 

Joaquin Miller. 



104 MODERN LOVE-STORY. 

MODERN LOVE-STORY. 

By "Eli Perkins.'' 
CHAPTER I. 

love's SACEiriCE. 

''Eli!" 

" Yes, Julia," I said, as I joined mj sweetheart, while 
she stood in the twilight watching the flowers in the 
conservatory. 

**You told me yesterday, Eli, that you loved me," 
she continued. 

"Yes, I believe I did." 

'' And you have been calling on me, and keeping the 
other beaux away, for four years." 

''Yes," I said, "I suppose so." 

"And now you say that you are poor, and love me 
too well to take me from my nice home." 

"It is all true, Julia." 

" Well, Eli, poverty shall never separate us," contin- 
ued the beautiful girl. ' Love wants not money — filthy 
lucre. Love feeds on love. Love does not want a pal- 
ace. Love dwells, the poet says, in the humble cot." 

"Yes, Julia." 

" Then let it be so with our love," pursued the brave 
girl. " Poverty shall not separate us. I care not for 
wealth; I could live in a garret with the man I loved, 
if—" 

"If what, Julia?" I asked, as I stood ready to throw 
my arms around her and call her my own — "if what, 
darling ? " 

" Why, I could live in a garret with the man I loved, 
if it had a nice elevator, a grand piano, and I could 
have my quail on toast sent in from the Palace Hotel; 
and — " 



MODEEN LOVE-STOBY. 105 

CHAPTER II. 

THE PROPOSAL. 

*' Julia!" I interrupted my beloved, two weeks after 
tlie conversation narrated in the previous chapter; "I 
have something confidential to tell you." 

''What is it, Eli?" she asked, in a low silvery voice 
— a kind of German silvery voice, as she raised her lus- 
trous eyes upon me. 

''Well, Julia, I was going to say that I sometimes 
think I might love you. Now, do you love me ? do you?" 

" Yes, Eli, I do love you, — you know I do! " and then 
she threw her alabaster arms around my neck. 

"I am very glad, Julia," I said, "for I like — " 

"Oh, Eli!" she interrupted me in sobs, "say on!" 

"I say I am very glad, Julia, — very glad that you 
love me, because " 

"Because what ? " gasped my beloved convulsively. 

" Because I like to be loved, Julia! " 

"Well?" 

But I never said another word. 

CHAPTER III. 

HAPPINESS AND BLISS. 

Time passed on. 

Six weeks after the affecting incident just related, my 
beloved grasped my hand distractedly, looked into my 
face, and as the tears of gratitude and love ran down her 
beautiful cheeks, she said: 

"Eli, such a warm-hearted, such a devoted man as 
you, could make me so happy if you chose to — " 

"How could I make you happy, my beloved?" I 
asked, my face suffused with smiles. 

"How could you make me happy, darling? how? 
why, by keeping away from me, Eli; by leaving " 



106 MODERN LOVE-STORY. 

CHAPTER IV. 
love's final proposal. 

Time still continued to elapse. Twenty-one years 
after the tearful scene described in the last chapter, I 
met my beloved Julia again. I called on her at her 
beautiful home in Oakland. Neither of us had married. 
Our meeting was very touching. I thought I saw the 
old love in her sweet, mournful eyes. I thought I saw 
the old affection swell her heaving bosom. We each 
then and there confessed our love anew. I called on 
her every day afterwards for months. 

One evening I was on the point of proposing again — 
honestly proposing; but my beloved anticipated me. 

As I entered the room, her slender frame shook con- 
vulsively, and then she spoke: 

'*You know, Mr. Perkins," she commenced, ''that 
this is leap year, — that this is a time when a lady can 
propose to a gentleman." And then she took my trem- 
bling hand in hers, and looked at me, her eyes eloquent 
with girlish emotion. 

''Yes," I said, struggling to withdraw my hand. 
"Well, Eli, you know you've been out with me a good 
deal lately. " 

"Yes," I said; and I felt the crimson come to my 
cheeks. 

"And while I have been too happy going out with 
you all winter, I feel — , I feel — , oh ! I don't know how 
to say what I want to." And then this innocent child 
hid her face in her hands. 

"Do not fear my answer, beautiful one," I responded. 
I also said, "I hope, Julia, your intentions are honor- 
able; for I am a poor, lone orphan, and my friends are 
far, far away." 

Then I asked her to tell me what troubled her. 



MODERN LOVE-STORY. 107 

*'0h, Eli, it is love," she replied, and then twirled 
her jeweled fingers. 

*'For whom is this love, darling? Do not fear my 
answer." 

'* Well," she rejoined, '"'I love — , I love — " 

''Who do you love, Julia ? " 

** Well, I love Augustus Williams, to whom I am en- 
gaged;" and then her hot tears fell thick and fast on my 
shirt-bosom. 

"Well, what have you to say to me?" I asked. 

"Well, Eli, father and Augustus said I had better see 
you, and propose " 

"Oh, darling, propose away! take your Eli! never 
mind father! I am thine " 

"No; father and Augustus thought I'd better see you, 
and propose — , propose — , p — r — o — p — o — s — e that 
you don't come here any more." 

Base flirt! I left her — oh, I left her! 



* * * I cannot think of anything that will serve better for com- 
ment, out of my own writings, than the last verse of ' ' The Chambered 
Nautilus," which you will find below. 
Yours very truly, 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul. 

As the swift seasons roll! 

Leave thy lov/- vaulted past! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free. 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! 



108 OUR CAMP IN SIXTY-FOUR. 

OUE CAMP IN '64. 

By Egbert Feriial. 

It was a pretty location, for a sage-brush town; and, 
like all new mining camps, bad big prospects ahead. 
A baker's dozen of frame buildings on either side of a 
brawling stream of pure, sparkling water; half a hun- 
dred tents and cabins on the hillsides and around the 
more pretentious structures of the main street; a wild 
stretch of sage-brush country in front, and a steep and 
towering mountain immediately behind. Fill in with 
four or five saloons, a blacksmith's shop, the recorder's 
office, and a store or two, and the picture will look some- 
thing like what the writer remembers of the general ap- 
pearance of Montgomery, Mono County, in 1864. 

What a lively little camp it was! No foolishness about 
the good people of Montgomery. Nearly all had passed 
through the red-hot days of Aurora, and were not in 
the habit of going to law to settle tbeir personal differ- 
ences about life and property. The first serious trouble 
grew out of a very natural desire to get the best corner 
lots in the rising young city. 

Of course they would be immensely valuable in the 
near future, when the fame of the '^ Golconda," ^'Ala- 
bama," and other rich mines, had startled the money 
centers of the world. No writs of possession were sued 
out; no actions of ejectment commenced. Every man 
who wanted a corner lot simply planted himself and 
battery on the desired spot. Naturally enough, as there 
were not sufficient corner lots to go round, quite a 
number of enterprising citizens got hurt. The county, 
however, was not put to the expense of carrying on 
criminal actions in the name of the people. 

Bridgeport, the seat of justice, was many miles away; 



OUR CAMP IN SIXTY-FOUE. 109 

DO such thing as a jail had been thought of in the new 
camp; and only two legal lights had hung out their pro- 
fessional shingles as disturbers of the public peace. 
Under these circumstances, as may be supposed, the 
practice of the law was not very extensive, being con- 
fined to a single tribunal, namely, the Justice of the 
Peace, who tried everything, from assault and battery 
to horse-stealing and murder. The miners, after a 
time, got tired of losing work by going to Montgomery 
to do jury duty, and insisted on the Justice, litigants, 
and the two attorneys coming to them. Thus it became 
a common sight to see those distinguished disciples of 
Blackstone, together with the honorable Court, shoulder 
their blankets and set out for some part of the district 
where a fresh batch of jurors could be coaxed into serv- 
ice. And such trials! Well, there was justice in the 
rough; perhaps more of it than is sometimes found 
under more favorable conditions; but everything had to 
be conducted on a strictly democratic basis. The Court 
being held in a saloon or country store, it was not 
deemed a contempt for a juryman, when dry, to stop 
the proceedings until all hands could take a drink; nor 
was it very remarkable for a witness to draw his six- 
shooter and sustain an objection to an unpleasant ques- 
tion. It was remarked, however, that one of the attor- 
neys, a mild-mannered little gentleman, entertained 
such a profound respect for judicial proceedings, that 
he never permitted himself to shoot anybody in Court, 
although outside more than one boisterous litigant or 
obstreperous witness fell before the sharp crack of his 
unerring pistol. On such occasions, lawyer No. 2 
always came to the assistance of his professional brother, 
and together they managed to obviate legal difficulties 
very comfortably. 



110 OUR CAMP IN SIXTY-FOUR. 

The mines of the new camp were rich beyond all 
question. High up the steep mountain-side — so steep 
as to make it necessary to ascend by a Avinding path — 
the pure virgin silver, from liundreds of narrow veins, 
glittered and sparkled in the sun. The writer more 
than once cut out pieces of the precious metal with a 
common jack-knife. A sack of the rock was almost 
equal in value to its weight in half dollars. And yet, 
owing to the peculiar character of the base metal run- 
ning through the rock, making it exceediugly dificult to 
extract the silver, coupled with the narrowness of the 
veins and their inaccessibility, hard times fell upon 
hopeful and enthusiastic Montgomery. The shipment 
of ore to Swansea, and other foreign parts, for reduc- 
tion, w^as discontinued as too slow; and everybody anx- 
iously discussed the practicability of successful smelt- 
ing nearer home. Furnace after furnace was built, 
tested, and abandoned. The hearts of the Montgom- 
eryites rose and fell with each experiment. Meanwhile, 
winter was fast approaching, provisions getting scarce, 
and money becoming a thing of remembrance only. 

At the eleventh hour, when gloom, was settling like a 
cloud over the little town, a rumor spread rapidly of 
the arrival of a German metallurgist, who was able to 
smelt Montgomery ore with the utmost ease. All the 
learned German needed was the right kind of a furnace, 
built on his own plan and under his personal super- 
vision. Great was the excitement that followed his 
advent. Nothing else was talked about. He was the 
lion of the hour. Emissaries were dispatched in hot 
haste to Aurora to raise the requisite cash. By dint of 
tremendous exertions the coin was procured, and the 
erection of the wonderful works began. Secrecy and 
mystery enshrouded the enterprise from its inception, 



OUR CAMP IN SIXTY-FOUR. Ill 

whicli only fanned the fire of public interest; and when 
at last it was announced that in a few dajs the German 
scientist would be ready to make his first run of silver 
bricks, the excitement became painfully intense. Finally 
the eventful day arrived. The whole camp turned out. 
Men, women and children crowded around the furnace. 
Even the Pi-Utes rallied in strong force. A corps of 
citizens acted as police to keep back the multitude who 
pressed forward to watch, with anxious eyes, the emi- 
nent foreigner and his grimy assistants. At length, 
amid breathless expectation, a stream of the clear, beau« 
tiful white metal was ran into the mould, and soon 
came forth the first silver brick of Montgomery District. 
A scene of wild tumult ensued. Cheer after cheer rent 
the air; speeches were made; toasts drunk; and the 
honored Teuton carried in triumph on the shoulders of 
the happy miners. Joy reigned supreme the remainder 
of the day and all through the night. 

Everybody felt as if his fortune was made. All were 
rich in the future, and now saw the near realization of 
their fondest hopes and brightest dreams. Alas! how 
suddenly and cruelly came bitter disappointment ! Next 
day, when the excitement had cooled down, the *' glori- 
ous silver brick" was discovered to be nothing more nor 
less than common lead! As might well be imagined, in- 
dignation ran high, and the outraged populace, fierce 
and desperate, sought the rascally German in all direc- 
tions. Fortunately for his miserable carcass, the scien- 
tific humbug had stolen away in the darkness of night, 
and was out of reach when the shameful fraud came to 
light. 

Winter laid its cold, white hand on the young camp. 
Work Avas suspended; men went shivering about; hope 
gave way to despair. W^e shall not soon forget the long, 



112 OUR CAMP IN SIXTY-FOUR. 

dreary montlis that followed. The supply of "grub" 
ran short, the gnawings of hunger began to be felt, and 
no relief appeared at hand. The most sanguine grew 
gloomy and despondent. Nobody came for corner-lots 
now. To add to the miseries of the situation, an Indian 
war, which had broken out some time before, seriously 
interrupted communication between Montgomery and 
Aurora. Nevertheless, many preferred risking their 
scalps on the road, to taking the chances of starvation 
in camp. 

One day a band of roving Pi-Utes, emboldened by the 
evident distress in the new district, camped on an ad- 
joining hill, and sent in a delegation of ''braves" to see 
how matters stood. The Indians were meddlesome and 
insolent; the whites obliging and peaceable. Finally, 
one of the chiefs proposed a nice little arrangement for 
the settlement of existing difficulties by a fair light. 

''How many white men want to fight Indian? One 
white man, one Indian?" 

Strange to say, considering the belligerent character' 
of the population, nobody wanted to fight. All had a 
kindly regard for Indians in general, and Pi-Utes in 
particular. A few mouths before, such a proposition 
would have been eagerly accepted, and viewed in the 
light of a frolic; but now, cold, hunger, disappointment 
and hard times generally, had taken the fight out of 
many a roystering fellow. 

It is due to the Montgomeryites to say, however, that 
at the time mentioned, most of the men belonging to the 
town Avere off on an expedition against the Indians in 
the Owen's river country, and had taken with them 
nearly every gun, pistol and knife in the place, leaving 
the few men in camp comparatively unarmed and de- 
fenseless. 



OUE CAMP IN SIXTY-FOUR. 113 

Christmas came, with its flood of golden memories, 
but brought no gladness nor good cheer to the snow- 
bound denizens of Montgomerj^ The writer smiles, 
after the lapse of fourteen years, over ohe remembrance 
of a deep-laid plot to secure a Christmas dinner. One 
Thompson, who was the owner of a pack-train, had 
among his long-eared animals a young and sober-look- 
ing little donkey, the pride and pet of his tribe. This 
solemn and tender beast of burden, it was deliberately 
resolved, should be captured in the dead of night on 
Christmas Eve, and immediately barbecued for a big 
dinner on the following day. Somehow our murderous 
intentions reached the ears of Thompson, the young 
jack disappeared, and we lost our Christmas "blow- 
out." This may appear now to be a laughing matter. 
It w^as not so then. Strong men shed tears of bitter 
disappointment, and swore vengeance against the traitor 
who had betrayed them in their hour of need. 

Spring brought better weather, and also a new sensa- 
tion. Another rich mining district had been discovered 
about forty or fifty miles distant. Some went there; 
some returned to Aurora, and others struck out for parts 
unknown. Montgomery Avas left an almost deserted vil- 
lage. The towering mountains still flashed their daz- 
zling treasures in the sunshine, the brawling stream still 
flowed in its brightness and beauty through the town; 
but the excitement was over, and the glory of Montgom- 
ery had departed. 



8 



114 DELUSIONS OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 



DELUSIONS OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 

By Rev, Dr. Oscar P. Fitzgerald. 

When we get beyond the thirties and forties in our 
pilgrimage towards the goal of tliis life, and begin to 
pay the heavy interest due on the debts incurred by the 
delusions of youth, we sigh as we look back over the 
path of the vanished years and recall the mistakes that 
might have been avoided, and think of the opportunities 
for wise choice that were lost, and will never come to 
us again. 

Pardon me, my young friends, if I have struck a note 
too serious. The theme has its solemn side, and I am 
standing with your seniors on that side where we hear 
the roar of that ocean beyond which lie the Great lieal- 
ities. I am not sad, but serious; not repining, but 
reflecting. 

All of us have our delusions. It depends upon the 
character of our delusions, and the manner in which we 
become free or disillusionized, whether in recalling them 
we shall have cause to sigh or smile. Some delusions 
are harmless, some are silly, some are injurious, some 
may be beneficial in a certain sense. If I enumerate 
some of them, you will be able to classify and apply as 
I proceed. 

One of the delusions of young people is the notion 
that other people are very deeply interested in all they 
do or say. It usually requires a long time to get free 
of this delusion. Standing *'in the center of his own 
horizon," the youth sees but little, but imagines that 
little draws upon him the attention of all the world. 
He cannot realize that other people are more interested 
in themselves than in him. 



DELCSIOXS OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 115 

Ifc is another delusion of jouog people that what 
is new to them is new to everybody else. It is refresh" 
ing to see how a sprightly young mind revels in a world 
of newly-discovered ideas. The new world of thought 
is relished by young students as keenly as the world of 
nature is relished by the senses in childhood. They 
rejoice in discoveries of original ideas, and often are not 
slow to communicate their fancied discoveries. When 
one of these deluded youths begins to find out that his 
new ideas are old ones, he becomes first bewildered, 
then ashamed, then timid and suspicious. He is as 
much afraid of the ancients as California settlers are of 
Spanish grants. He finds so many of the best thoughts 
already appropriated, that he is afraid to assert a pre- 
emption claim even to the quarter section of an idea. 
Sometimes this difficulty is met in a manner at once 
bolder and baser, by stealing from others. But he who 
does this is the victim of a delusion. He thinks nobody 
knows it, when the fact is, the very persons of all others 
from whom he would conceal his theft, are the ones who 
will be sure to find it out. The whine of a pnppy is 
not mistaken for the growl of a lion. Borrowed j)ea- 
cock's feathers do not hide the silly goose. Original 
thought is more difficult now than in the da3^s of Ho- 
mer, but the application of ideas and the forms of ex- 
pression change endlessly, and there is no need of 
purloining from our forefathers, even if detection were 
impossible. It is amusing to listen to the youthful 
peddler of old ideas as new. Sometimes you see him 
in the pulpit — the last place into which pretension and 
affectation should intrude. Beligion mourns, decency 
blushes. The cure for this delusion of young people is 
time. Except in the few cases of the hopeless fools, 
persons as they grow older find out their own limita- 



116 DELUSIONS OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 

tions, and give other people credit for knowing some- 
thing as well as themselves. 

It is a prevalent delusion with young people that there 
is such a thing as good fortune, as distinguished from 
evil fortune. It is fully and eternally true that no per- 
son's good fortune can really rise above his character 
or deserts. The contrary belief of thousands makes of 
them hypocrites, scoundrels, failures, wrecks. The 
worship of the goddess of luck is the worst sort of devil- 
worship, and yet what multitudes bow at her shrine! 
In the imaginations of the young, she presides not only 
over the stock exchange and the gaming table, but in 
the business mart, the law office, the political arena and 
the matrimonial market. Considering the chances of a 
life-time, they think the lightning of luck must strike 
them at least once. In no good and true sense can this 
be so, my young friends. It is not pretended that the 
circumstances of all men's and w^omen's lives are the 
same. From a superficial view, there seems to be end- 
less diversity of good and evil fortune. Some are born 
poor, others are born rich ; some are strong, others are 
weak; some die early, others reach long life; one falls 
in the battle, another escapes; one toils hard and nearly 
starves in obscurity, while another apparently has only 
to wish and his wishes are met. This is on the surface. 
A deeper view will show that luck goes for nothing in 
the problem of human destiny, which is directly and 
wholly involved in that of character. This truth is too 
important to be omitted, but its discussion would lead 
me too far at present. Every individual's fortune is 
within, as Emerson says, " For every thing worth having 
we must pay the price." This is a true saying; all the 
apparently-successful thieves, quacks, demagogues and 
cheats and liars of every shade and name to the con- 



DELUSIONS OP YOUNG PEOPLE. 117 

trary notwitlistanding. It is not safe to trust the young 
man wlio trusts to luck. He is apt to be a young man 
who swindles liis employer, neglects to pay liis board 
bill and washerwoman, and brings to sorrow and dis- 
grace the woman who may be foolish enough to risk her 
luck in marrying him. You may point to your little 
men in high places, your mean men in places that ought 
to be honorable almost everywhere, and claim that they 
were lucky; but I reply that they have not risen above 
themselves. Honor refuses to crown them, while she 
bends over the dust of martyred heroes, and hangs the 
amaranth of a glorious immortality upon their tombs. 
Another delusion of young people is that they can 
safely toy a little with evil, go no farther than they 
wish, and retrace their steps when they choose. This 
delusion is probably the most fatal of all others. It is 
the bait which hides most effectually the sharp point 
and barb of the devil's hook. Only nibble, and he will 
soon have you fast. To begin a course of evil is to get 
on an inclined plane, down which the momentum in- 
creases fearfully every moment. Young friends, don't 
nibble at the devil's hook. Don't get on the inclined 
plane. One winter, about the beginning of the heavy 
rains, passing down the Sacramento river, above Sher- 
man Island, I observed that the water had in one place 
just barely overflowed the bank, and was trickling gently 
through the opening. In a few days, behold the change ! 
The floods had lifted themselves np in their power, 
swept away all the embankments, and were furiously 
rolling in a turbid, resistless volume over the plains, 
submerging, destroying everything in their course! It 
was said that fifty dollars' worth of labor bestowed upon 
the weak point would have prevented all the disaster. 
It was the beginning that did all the mischief. So with 



118 DELUSIONS OF YOUNG TEOPLE. 

* 

the beginnings of evil. Tlie barriers of principle and 
right habit once broken down, the floods of evil bear 
all before them. Do not admit the beginnings. The 
Sacramento floods have subsided; the flowers are bloom- 
ing and harvests waving where once rolled a watery 
waste. But, alas! my young friends, the flowers of 
hope and innocence will never bloom, nor harvests of 
usefulness and happiness wave in the moral desert of 
the soul where evil has done its work. 

There are various minor delusions against which it 
is hardly necessary that I should warn you. You are 
deluded when you think that tight boots are worth the 
pain they cost you; that you could write poetry if you 
were only to try; that the use of tobacco is necessary to 
manhood; that rudeness is the same as independence; 
that eccentricity is a sure mark of genius; that the 
great object of life is to have a jolly time; that an un- 
dutiful daughter can make a good wife; that you can 
sow wild oats without reaping wild sorrow; that slander 
can hurt the innocent, or that all that you do not know 
would not make a big book. 

Though I have said nothing about the delusions of 
girls and young women, it must not be supposed that I 
think they have no delusions. That would be a delu- 
sion, indeed. While many of the delusions of young 
people are common to both sexes, there are some pecul- 
iar to the fair sex. I cannot give them the attention 
they deserve, for time would fail. It Avould take a good 
while to mention all the delusions to which young ladies 
are subject. I can only glance at a few. 

It is a prevalent delusion, with many young women, 
that the functions of life are discharged by dressing 
nicely, looking pretty, and giving the world an oppor- 
tunity to admire and pet them. It is lamentable to meet 



DELUSIONS OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 119 

one of these joung girls, louDgiDg about the house, 
doubled up in a rocking-chair or a sofa, reading novels 
or such love stories as are found in the popular weeklies. 

Many young women are deluded with the idea that 
they are heroines. They imagine they have feelings too 
deep for the comprehension of common natures; their 
lofty souls dwell apart from the vulgar herd. Fate is 
against them; they are the most misunderstood, the most 
miserable of creatures, — a kind of female Byrons or 
Shelleys, minus the genius, — who cultivate heroics, affect 
untold wretchedness, and glory in a proud despair. A 
little real trouble will bring them to their senses in most 
cases. 

It is a delusion for girls to think that it is the right 
thing to spend all their time doing nothing, or thrum- 
ming the everlasting piano while their mothers do all 
the housework; that all the men who make pretty 
speeches to them tell the truth; that money grows on 
trees; that the style of their bonnets is of more import- 
ance than the cultivation of their minds; that a little 
slang is sprightly; that to be out of the fashion is the 
climax of human misfortune; that it is particularly gen- 
teel not to know how to work; that when they are as old 
as their mothers they will know more than their mothers 
ever knew. 

Do not think, my young friends, that all the high 
hopes and glorious visions of youth are delusions. No, 
thank God ! the grandest, best of them are not delusions 
but prophecies. The measure of right aspiration is the 
measure of possible attainment. The height of holy 
hope is the gauge of jDOssible fruition. The loftiest mel- 
ody of the best moment of your life may be the key-note 
of an eternal song. From the bay-window of my cot- 
tage on the western edge of Russian Hill, San Francisco, 



120 DELUSIONS OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 

at the close of a warm day, I sat gazing upon the cLang- 
ing glories of a gorgeous sunset. The ships seemed 
asleep upon the placid waters of the bay; above the 
Golden Gate hung a drapery of burning clouds, almost 
too bright for the gazer's eye; Tamalpais, lifted above 
the Marin hills, had wrapped himself in an evening robe 
of royal purple, and sat like a monarch on his throne; 
the islands in sight were not quieter than the waters 
that held them in soft embrace. Above the golden glow 
of the hills of Contra Costa, the sky blushed as if con- 
scious of its own loveliness. As I gazed, my soul was 
filled with a sense of beauty, and I worshiped God the 
Creator of all. But even while I gazed the scene 
changed. The blazing cloud-fires died out, the purple 
of the mountain deepened into darkness, the sunlit 
islands almost faded from sight in the thickening twi- 
light; the rose-tinted sky turned to sober evening gray, 
the bugle of Alcatraz pealing over the waters, announced 
that the day Avas gone; then the stars came out over- 
head to shine until the break of the morning light. So, 
friends, though the glorious visions of your youth may 
fade, its bright hopes perish, and disappointment and 
defeat settle down npon your lives, the stars of Christian 
faith will shine through your night of trial until the 
morning comes, and upon your glorified spirit shall 
burst the sunrise of immortality. 



THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS. 121 

THE EOCKY MOUNTAINS, NOW AND THEN. 

By John C. Feemont. 

Long years ago I wandered here, 
In the mid-summer of the year, 
• Life's summer too; 

A score of horsemen here we rode. 
The mountain-world its glories showed; 
All fair to view. 

These scenes in glowing colors drest, 
Mirrored the life within my breast, 

Its world of hope; 
The whispering woods and fragrant breeze 
That stirred the grass in verdant seas 

On billowy slope. 

And glistening crag in sun-lit sky, 
'Mid snowy clouds piled mountain high. 

Were joys to me; 
My path was o'er the prairies wide. 
Or here on grander mountain-side, 

To choose, all free. 

The rose that waved in morning air. 
And spread its dewy fragrance there 

In careless bloom. 
Gave to my heart its ruddiest hue. 
O'er my glad life its colors threw. 

And sweet perfume. 

Now changed the scene, and changed the eyes 
That here once looked on glowing skies. 

Where Summer smiled; 
The riven trees and wind-swept plain 
Now show the Winter's dread domain — 

Its fury w^ild. 



122 THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 

The rocks rise black from storm-packed snow, 
All checked the river's pleasant flow, 

Vanished the bloom; 
These dreary wastes of frozen plain 
Keflect my bosom's life again, 

Now lonesome gloom. 

The buoyant hopes and busy life 
Have ended all in hateful strife, 

And thwarted aim. 
The world's rude contact killed the rose; 
No more its radiant color shows 

False roads to fame. 

Backward, amidst the twilight glow. 
Some lingering spots yet brightly show. 

On hard roads won; 
Where still some grand peaks mark the way 
Touched by the light of parting day 

And memory's sun. 

But here, thick clouds the mountain hide; 
The dim horizon, bleak and wide. 

No pathway shows; 
And rising gusts and darkening sky 
Tell of " the night that cometh" nigh, 

The brief day's close. 



THE VIRGIN MARY AND THE BABY. 123 



THE VIKGIN MAKY AND THE BABY. 

By Mrs. Jessie Benton Fremont. 

Letter from a Catholic mother. 

"* * * At last, in this month of roses, to us the "month of Mary," 
the hoped-for baby girl has come. We have given her the name that 
includes all prayers and all blessings, ISIary. 



Answer from a Protestant eriend. 

Mary ! loving, geiitl»e Mother, 

In deepest faith we bring another, 

Bring her trustingly to thee. 

Asking only, Blessed Lady, 
That this darling longed-for baby 
May from and grief sin be free : 

Hoping that while life remains 
She may meet no earthly stains. 
But shelter ever find in thee : 

Trusting that when life is closing. 
On thy mother-heart reposing, 
Eternal rest she'll find with thee: 

Praying, O Mary! when at last. 

Life and its weary cares are past. 

We, with our babes, may rest with thee. 



124 SOWING AND REAPING. 



SOWING AND KEAPING. 

By Dr. Elizabeth J. French. 

It was said by one who spake as the oracle of God, 
"Whatever a man soweth that shall he reap," and this 
inspired utterance comprehends the vast field of human 
experience, the sum total of human life. Its harvests 
of sunshine and shadow, hope and fear, joy and sorrow, 
happiness and misery, health and disease, and the final 
culmination in a successful or an unsuccessful destiny, 
have each had their own distinct and certain seed-time. 
It is true, the same hand that scattered the seed may 
not reap the harvest. Many soav where they do not 
reap, while many reap where they have not sown. 

Our humanity is a common one. Bound together by 
successive and inseparable links (and I may here add 
parenthetically, that it is because of the far reaching 
consequences of individual acts and the entailment of 
those consequences upon his fellows, that in the Divine 
order the individual is held to such strict personal ac- 
countability), the advanced thought, the profound phil- 
osophy, and the brilliant learning that now reflect the 
glory of heaven upon a race created "a little lower 
than the angels," are not of to-da,y. But they are the 
garnered gleanings of human toil, human ambition, and 
human genius, the seed of which was scattered all along 
the line of successive ages. 

In the world's great history, revolutions have pressed 
closely upon the heels of revolutions; generation after 
generation has passed avvay, age after age has rolled si- 
lently by, but each has left its impress upon the "sands 
of time," and added its contributions to the rock-built 
pyramid of science, until to-day its light-crowned vertex 
reaches to the stars. 



SOWING AND REAPING. 125 

If the past generations of the Avorld have bequeathed 
to us an inheritance of untold good, they have also, by 
the inevitable law of compensation and hereditary trans- 
mission, bequeathed to us an inheritance of untold and 
iocalculable evil. That '^the sins of the fathers shall 
be visited upon the children, even unto the third and 
fourth generation," is not the arbitramental expression 
of the Divine will, but the simple declaration of a law 
that is eternal and inexorable as fate. 

In considering the great problem of disease, crime, 
untimely death and other human sufferings, the prime 
factor is, unquestionably, intemperance. Its history is 
the darkest page in our national records. It is the 
story of a long, black night — rayless, cheerless, hope- 
less. A chapter written in human blood and full of 
human suffering: a harvest of evil, unmixed with a 
single grain of good. 

The first ripple on the shore gives no sign of the 
overwhelming power that lies behind the slowly creep- 
ing tide. Our Puritan fathers had no thought that a 
side-board, laden with liquors and smelling like a very 
active grog-shop, v/as not an eminently proper prepara- 
tion for even an important religious service; and that 
a considerable amount of exhilaration from this cause 
was entirely in keeping with a devoutly religious char- 
acter. 

Scarce half a century ago, a clergyman remarked the 
imminent dauger he was in of getting drunk while mak- 
ing his round of morning calls. In their blind ignor- 
ance of the serpent they were taking to their bosom, 
our ancestors made the side-board as necessary to the 
household as the flour-barrel. 

High and low, rich and poor, wise and unwise, virtu- 
ous and unvirtuous, were brought within the charmed 



126 SOWING AND REAPING. 

circle of a power tliat,l ike the many-armed monster of 
the sea, fixes its fatal grasp before the victim is con- 
scious of the presence of an enemy. 

Philosophers, statesmen, and poets, gathered around 
the supposed Promethean flame that had come down 
from heaven to burnish the lustre of their genius, and to 
add refulgence to the grand conceptions of their intel- 
lects and splendor to their imagery and diction. 

Chief in the sad category stands the great Massachu- 
setts senator, Daniel Webster, who, like a splendid 
meteor, flashed athwart the American sky, and then 
went out in sudden night. Talcot, the nobly-endowed 
attorney-general of New York ; the inspired Poe ; a 
late conspicuous cabinet officer of two successive pres- 
idential administrations; a distinguished statesman, who 
almost achieved success in a mad race for the Presi- 
dency, but gained instead a drunkard's grave; and a 
host of others whose names are as familiar as household 
words, and the history and tragic issue of whose lives 
stand out in gloomy monumental grandeur, are sad, 
mournful mementoes of great genius ruined. 

But war, savage butchery, pestilence and famine have 
all been merciful, compared with this insatiate monster, 
whose rapacious greed is devouring the very life-blood 
of our national existence. 

Who of my readers can contemplate, without a shud- 
der, the startling declaration that more than a hundred 
thousand lives are annually crushed out by the vice of 
intemperance, in our own land alone? Add to this the 
bleeding, broken hearcs that have been robbed of their 
richest treasures, and the homes that have been made 
desolate forever. 

Add, also, nine tenths of all the crimes that blot and 
blacken the history of our country. Then add to the 



SOWING AND EEAPING. 127 

measure of this terrible iniquity the transmission of 
diseased tendencies, a poisoned fountain that corrupts 
and pollutes the Avhole stream below. A prominent 
pathologist of to-day emphatically declares that "an 
inebriate parent transmits enough poison to require ten 
generations to eliminate it." 

The children of such parents inherit a physical and 
moral nature so diseased and defective that, by the very 
conditions of their birth, they are bowed down as by an 
iron fate. They have bequeathed to them a life-strug- 
gle, from which they seldom escape. Nature herself 
seems mercifully leagued against them, and tliey are 
brought down to early graves. Were it not so, in the 
next generation there would be evidences of a still 
more marked physical degeneracy. Idiocy, deafness, 
shocking physical deformities, and the whole catalogue 
of nervous diseases, are in a vast majority of cases 
traceable to this cause, even through many and remote 
generations. 

What a theme for mothers to contemplate! — they to 
whom is entrusted, as a solemn responsibility, the per- 
petuity of the race. 

I am not surprised that an enlightened womanhood, 
comprehending the startling truths that have been de- 
veloped by the physiologist and pathologist concerning 
the transmission of ancestral vice, and more especially 
she who feels in her own perverted physical and moral 
life-forces the taint of inherited pollution, should pause 
tremblingly on the threshold of maternit3% and even 
shrink from the exercise of a God- given prerogative. 
And I submit the proposition to a candid public, that 
it were better, far better, that she should go down to 
her grave a blossomless tree, and let her inheritance of 
evil die with her. For if we would bequeath to those 



128 SOWING AND REAPING. 

who stand next us on the line a better inheritance and 
a better destiny, Ave can only hope to do it through the 
physical and moral exaltation of motherhood. 

Oh, ye women of America! Ye who are to be the 
mothers of the unborn judges and law-givers of the fu- 
ture ! The destiny of the mightiest empire on the globe is 
inyour hands. God help you to comprehend and prepare 
yourselves for the grand and sublime mission to which 
you are chosen ! Gird yourselves for your work ; let noth- 
ing deter you from aspiring to and attaining the grand 
possibilities that are within your reach. Study your- 
selves and the laws of your being, and impart to your 
daughters, through every available avenue, a full knowl- 
edge of the laws of health. Teach them, and apply 
yourselves to growing strong in body and in mind. And 
I coiijure you, by all your hopes of happiness in this 
life and the life to come, keep your minds pure and 
preserve your bodies as " the temple of the living God:'' 
a sanctuary where all his commandments are kept invio- 
late and all his mandates are obeyed. 

Then you may accept thankfully and gladly your high 
destiny in God's appointed way. You will have ''gone 
forth, bearing precious seed," and 3'ou will have your 
harvest of good things even here. Your children will 
rise up and call you blessed. 

Even as we honor and revere the memory of tho 
mothers of the nation, so shall your names go down to 
posterity wreathed with unfading laurels. And in the 
city of the Great King, the reward of the just and the 
crown of the faithful shall be yours forever. 



EACH AND ALL. 129 



EACH AND ALL. 
By Henry Geoege. 



The organization for which I am asked to write this 
article has a noble purpose, — to help in helping them- 
selves those to whom society is but a hard step-mother; 
to aid in bringing under happier influences those whose 
mental and moral growth may be otherwise stunted and 
distorted; to give a sign to those who stand at the forks 
of the road of life and have no guide. Already in our 
young city there is need of such an organization, and its 
hands are weak for what it finds to do. With the years 
the need will increase. They are born to-day who may 
live to see around this bay not merely a New York but 
a London. 

Even such an agency as this, how much it may ac- 
complish! How many human beings it may help to 
bring out of shadow into the sunlight ! How many lives 
it may bless and brighten, again in their turn to 
brighten and to bless! For sometimes what seems a 
very little thing determines the whole career of a man. 

How much of the vice and crime, the ignorance and 
misery and meanness which disfigure society, springs 
from causes within human control! It is more than 
alms that is due from the strong to the weak; from the 
wise to the ignorant; from the rich to the poor, — it is 
an obligation. For they who have, have received. 

The will within us is the ultimate fact of conscious- 
ness. Yet how little have the best of us, in acquire- 
ments, in position, even in character, that may be 
credited entirely to ourselves! how much to the influ- 
ences that have moulded us! Who is there, wise, 
learned, discreet, or strong, Avho might not, Avere he to 



130 EACH AND ALL. 

trace the inner liistory of liis life, turn like tlie stoic 
Emperor to give thanks to the gods, that by this one 
and that one, and here and there, good examples have 
been set him, noble thoughts have reached him, and 
happy influences have touched to bless him ? Who is 
there that with his eyes about him has reached the 
meridian of life, who has not sometimes echoed the 
thought of the pious Englishman as the criminal passed 
to the gallows, '^ But for the grace of God, there go I." 
We talk about hereditary power. But what, either 
in individual or in national life, is it to the ever-press- 
ing forces which act upon each from all around us? 
Does all the Anglo-Saxon live in me, and in that other, 
all the thousand years of Chinese petrifaction ? Per- 
haps. How little passes with the blood! Place an in- 
fant in the heart of China, and but for the angle of the 
eye or the shade of the hair, the Caucasian would grow 
up a Chinaman, using the same speech, thinking the 
same thoughts, exhibiting the same tastes as those 
around him. And what may we expect from those who 
are growing up as in the midst of our civilization some 
children are growing up ? 

All the efforts of science have failed to trace back of 
itself the springs and sources of that subtle thing that 
we call life and know not what it is. So far as we can 
go is to discern back of each living thing some other 
living thing. Yet so widely are its germs scattered, 
that given but the conditions that support it, and there 
will life appear. And so it seems in the moral world. 
Whenever in human history occasion and opportunity 
wait the man, forth he steps, and as the common worker 
is on need transformed into queen bee, so wdien circum- 
stances are favorable, what might otherwise pass for a 
common man, rises into hero or leader, sage or saint. 



EACH AND ALL. 131 

So widely has the sower scattered the good seed; so 
strong is the germinative force that bids it bud and 
blossom. But, alas! for the stony ground, and the 
birds, and the tares ! For one who attains his full stat- 
ure, how many are stunted and deformed ! 

Saddest of all the sights of a great city, such as San 
Francisco, are the little children of the quarters where 
poverty hides — saddest and most menacing. Pinched, 
ragged, and dirty; yet in every little body a human soul; 
in every little body latent powers that might strengthen 
and bless society; but that may only awake to curse, 
perhaps to destroy. Is it not waste, and worse ? Out 
of just such human stuff have grown earth's best and 
noblest; and out of such waste have come the vermin 
that have gnawed, and the were-wolves that have 
destroyed— they who have shattered the domes of 
national glory, and in palace-walls given the wild dog 
a lair. 

Who shall wrap himself up and say, "This is not my 
affair! " Each is inextricably linked to all by a law of 
which gravitation is but the physical expression. We 
talk about lineage and descent, and there are some who 
are proud of what they call their blood; and some who 
would found families, yet care not how it fares with 
other people's children. Each has two parents, four 
grand-parents, eight great-grand-parents, and so on. 
Back but a few degrees, and his ancestors must be those 
of all his people. And so forward, a few degrees, and 
the blood of each must run in all. Drawn from a 
common ocean, proceeding towards a common ocean, 
we are separate but as drops of rain. 

However strong his individuality, who can escape the 
conditions of his time ? Stout may the swimmer be, 



132 EACH AND ALL. 

but lie breasts a current. Among mental pigmies can 
even the intellectual giant attain his full stature? How 
hard to be brave among cowards, generous among the 
selfish, learned among the ignorant, or spiritual among 
the imbruted ! How dominant is fashion — in dress, in 
play, in speech, in thought, in tastes, in manners and 
in morals. 

In a balloon one can get above the level of the earth 
some thousands of feet, but not above the atmosphere. 
The millionaire may build himself a mansion on a hill, 
but how shall he shut out the infiuence of the slums ? 

An eminent clergyman who, like 

'' John P. Bobinson, he 
Thinks they didn't know anything down in Judee,'* 

only expresses the belief of many other professed Chris- 
tians when he declares that the injunction, " take no 
thought for the morrow; what ye shall eat, and what ye 
shall drink, and wherewithal ye shall be clothed," would, 
if taken literally, bring civilization to an end and reduce 
humanity to barbarism. 

So it seems to those who think society, as at present 
constituted, the only possible society. But is this so? 
Having progressed thus far, may humanity progress no 
further? Approached from the side of political economy 
and political philosophy, it seems to me that this say- 
ing, too, has the stamp of Him who spake as never man 
spake, and goes to the heart and core of truth; that in 
a society such as obedience to His precepts would 
found, a society based on the golden rule, there would 
be no anxiety for the morrow, and that not merely some 
men but all men would be raised above the care and 
worry that now consumes the largest part of the brain- 
force of mankind. To me it seems that a civilization of 



EACH AND ALL. 13 



Q 



this kind is not only j^ossible, but that it is the only 
civilization that can last. What is it that has over- 
turned all previous civilizations? May not all causes 
be reduced to one, — the unequal distribution of the 
wealth and power gained as civilization advanced? A 
condition of inequality is always a condition of unstable 
equilibrium. Unless its foundations be laid in justice, 
the strongest state is a house built on the sand. 

'*Down in Judee" they did not have the microscope, 
nor the telescope, nor the spectrum analysis, nor the 
electric light, nor the railroad train, nor the daily news- 
paper; but may it not possibly be that in the moral 
truths that from them came down to us, may be some 
deeper things than our telescopes can reach and our 
chemistr3^ discover? 

What is it that hems in and checks civilization to-day, 
and makes our progress seem like the chase of a mirage? 
Not the limitations of nature, nor the feebleness of the 
intellect. May it not be the failure to recognize moral 
truth? 

The winds do our bidding, and the occult pulses of 
the earth carry our words; we weigh the sun and ana- 
lyze the stars. One after another, mightier genii than 
those that arise in Arabian story have bowed to the call 
of the lamp of knowledge. And yet they throng and 
come, powers more vast, in shapes more towering. But 
to what end? Look to the van of progress, Avhere the 
conditions to which all progressive countries are tend- 
ing are most fully realized, Avhere wealth is most abun= 
dant and population densest — the great cities, where one 
may walk through miles of palaces, where are the 
grandest churches, the greatest libraries, the highest 
levels of luxur}-, and refinement, and education, and 
culture! Amid the greatest accumulations of wealth 



134 EACH AND ALL. 

men die of starvation, and women prowl tlie streets to 
buy bread with shame; in factories where labor-saving 
machinery shows the last march of ingenuity, little chil- 
dren are at work who ought to be at play; where the 
new forces are most fully realized, large classes are 
doomed to 2:)auperism or live just on its verge, while 
everywhere the all-absorbing chase of wealth shows the 
force of the fear of want, and from altars dedicated to 
the Living God leers the molten image of the Golden 
Calf. 

Progress thus one-sided is not real, and cannot last. 
No chain is stronger than its Aveakest link. If the low 
are not brought up, the high shall be pulled down. 
Tliis is the attraction of gravitation of the moral uni- 
verse; it is the fiat of the eternal justice that rules the 
world. It stands forth in the history of every civiliza- 
tion that has had its day and run its course. It is what 
the Sphinx says to us as she sitteth in desert sand, 
while the winged bulls of Nineveh bear her witness! It 
is within the undecipherable hieroglyphics of Yucatan, 
in the brick mounds of Babylon, in the prostrate columns 
of Persepolis, in the salt-sown plain of Carthage. It 
speaks to us from the shattered relics of Grecian art; 
from the mighty ruins of the Coliseum! 

Yery far we cannot see; but this we may see — that 
truth is one; that eternal laws never jostle nor jar; that 
intellectual truth is the co-ordinate of moral truth, and 
the law of liberty is the law of love. 

Whether they did or did not "know anything down in 
Judee," is not that philosophy short-sighted which 
looks upon selfishness as the strongest of human mo- 
tives ? " All that a man hath will he give for his life;" 
but in every age have there been those who, from other 
than selfish motives, have laid down even life. 



EACH AND ALL. 135 

It is not seMsliness that on every page of the world's 
annals, bursts out in the sudden splendor of noble deeds 
or sheds the soft radiance of benignant lives. Was it 
selfishness that turned Gautama's back to his rojal 
home, or bade the Maid of Orleans lift the sword from 
the altar; that held the Three Hundred in the pass of 
Thermopjlse, or gathered into ATinkelried's bosom the 
sheaf of spears; that chained Vincent de Paul to the 
bench of the galley, or brought little starving children, - 
during the Indian famine, tottering to the relief-stations 
wdth yet w^eaker starvelings in their arms? 

Beligion, patriotism, sympathy, the enthusiasm of 
humanity, the love of God — call it what you wdll, there 
is yet a force w^hich is the electricity of the moral uni- 
verse — a force beside which all others are weak. Look 
around ! to-day, as ever, the world is full of it. Amid the 
care and the struggle of daily life, every here and 
there, may be seen the i^lay of its lambent fiames. Is 
it not possible that a society might exist in which this 
force might take the place of coarser and weaker ones ? 

Out of the darkness and into the dark! What shall 
we do in our little day? This has appeared to the com- 
mon perceptions of all men in all times. It is figured 
in myth, and formulated in creed, and vaguely outlined 
in philosophic systems — that the universe is the field of 
an effort, the strug^de between good and evil, or the 
evolution of life to higher forms of life. Is it not the 
noblest thought that may come to a man, that he may 
somehow help, even if it be but little ? 

Grandest of all philosophic generalizations is that of 
the conservation of energy. The force with which I 
trace these lines, or you open this book, has acted 
through all a past eternity, and forever and forever 
through a future eternity must continue to act. 



136 EACH AND ALL. 

May not this, also, be but the physical expression of 
a moral truth? May it not be that the good act must 
continue to bear fruit, and the bad to bring bale, until 
that final time when the substance shall unite with the 
shadow, and evil cease to be ? For him who would do 
something, there is enough to do — so much, that it may 
seem that what he can do is of no avail. Yet he is one, 
and the ocean is made up of drops; the earth of atoms. 
As all act on each, so each acts on all. What he may 
do he may not see, and perhaps it will seem like writing 
on the water, or throwing dust against the wind. But 
force persists, and somewhere, sometime, with wider 
eyes it may be traced. But sometimes, even here, the 
mists may rift, and in a momentary gleam one may be 
given to see the end — the white walls and the golden 
streets, the glorious possibilities of an ennobled hu- 
manity — the New Jerusalem, not built with hands, but 
by every high thought and worthy deed ! 



On the upper Sacramento they are putting fish-eggs 
into the water, tiny little globules, in which the most 
scrutinizing analysis can discern nothing but inert mat- 
ter. Under the mysterious influences of Nature they 
become little fish; they descend the tortuous river, they 
pass through the waters of the bay, churned by steam- 
ships, and out by the Golden Gate into the trackless 
ocean that girdles all lands and into which all rivers 
run. Yet they who are putting these eggs into the 
water know the fact — the Iloiu^ no man can tell — that 
when the time shall come, the fish will be led by an 
unerring instinct, through thousands of miles of track- 
less ocean-wastes, back to the very river that gave them 
birth. 

'* Cast your bread upon the waters, and after many 



CONSOLATION. 137 

days it shall return!" May it not be that instead of a 
metaphysical truth, sometimes realized and sometimes 
not, this is the espresssion of a literal truth — of an im- 
mutable law? "Where? how? wdien? How shall ive 
say, whose little lives can hardly hope to span the three 
score years and ten, and whose knowledpje can but light 
up the walls of the unknowable that hem us in ! 



CONSOLATION. 

By Maurice F. Egan. 

Let me forget the world, — all, all but thee; 

Let my whole soul arise, as smoke from fire, 

In praise of thee; let only one desire 
Fill all my heart, that through eternity, 
Forever and forever, I may be 

As incense constant rising to the Sire, 

Thee, and the Spirit; may I never tire 
Of praising thee, the glorious Trinity. 
Poor soul, poor soul, such earthliness hast thou! 

Thy world 's thyself, thou can'st not flee from it; 

Thy prayers are selfish when thou prayest best; 
Thy love is little; thy soul's w^armest vow 

As charred wood moistened, the fire free from it; 

Thou lackest much, but Christ will fill the rest. 



138 AN ARABIAN TALE. 

AN AEABIAN TALE. 

By Rev. Edward Everett Hale. 

An Arab slieik, owner of a liundrecl camels, three 
hundred horses and a thousand sheep, always kept his 
encampment at some distance from his kinsmen. He 
had &Ye sons and four daughters, who, as they grew, 
were regarded in all that region as the flower of that 
country, so careful was their trainiug, so thorough their 
accomplishments, and so pure their life. 

One evening, when the father and his eldest son were 
returning to the encampment, having ridden near sev- 
enty miles in search of some camels who had strayed, 
the boy begged permission to speak, and then asked 
his father why he and his brothers and sisters were fed, 
from day to day, on dates and bread, with a strip of 
dry meat at noon, when the boys and girls in neighbor- 
ing encampments shared this luxury and that, — fresh 
meat killed daih^, fruits of names unknown from Yemen, 
and spices from the ships of India. 

And his father said, "Are not your bodies strong? 
And can you not ride as well as they?" 

The son replied, "There is not a youth in either 
camp who can throw me in wrestling, and you know if 
I have asked to draw bridle or to dismount to-day." 

His father said, " This is what your food is given for. 
If our fare is simple, it is that you may not be tempted 
to prize the food more than the strength for which the 
food is given." 

Another day the father of the sheik had sent a courier 
to all the camps to ask the attendance of his sons^ and 
of their friends, that they might hear an embassador, 
who had come from Yemen. He took with him his 
second son, to care for the horses, and to learn the 



AN ARABIAN TALE. 139 

methods of embassies. One day they went; one day 
they remained at the encampment; one day they re- 
turned. On the third day, when they had ridden ten 
hours, they saw in the horizon the bhick tents of their 
tribe. 

Then the youth asked leave to speak, and said to 
his father, " Oil! my father, why do j^ou sleep upon the 
ground, when your tindred have cushions, and woven 
mats brought by their slaves, and have furs from the 
north ready, should the night be cold ? Why, in our 
camp, do we have neither furs, cushions, nor slaves ?" 

And his father said, " We sleep at night, that we may 
be strong to-morrow. Are not your bodies as strong, 
and can you not ride as well as they?" 

And his son answered, "There is not a youth in their 
tents who can throw me in wrestling. You know if I 
have asked to draw bridle or to dismount to-day." 

His father responded, "This is what sleep is given us 
for. If our beds are simple, it is that we may not be 
tempted to prize the sleep more than the strength for 
which the sleep is given." 

At another time there came a message that the older 
brother of the sheik was ill, and had sent for him. The 
sheik rode across the desert on the swiftest dromedar}^, 
and took with him his third son. Two days they rode; 
two days they watched with the dying man; two days 
they joined in the lamentations over him, and for two 
days they rode on their return. 

On the eighth day, as the sun went down, the boy 
asked leave of his father to speak, and said, " Why do 
my cousins dress in shawls of Cashmere, in silks of 
Ispahan, and wear clasps of gold and pearl from 
Sereudib, while we are dressed in camel's hair and 
wool of our own flocks and herds, which my sisters 
spun and my mother wove ? " 



140 AN ARABIAN TALE. 

And Lis father said: " Are j^ou not as warm as tliey? 
Are you not as strong as tliey ? Are not your clotlies 
as easy for running or for riding ? " 

And the boy said: "On the evening when we came to 
the camp there was a wrestling match. I threw all my 
cousins in their turn; and when the turn came round, 
I threw them all again. We have ridden in two days 
so far that the ravens are weary of following. You know 
if I have asked to dismount, or to draw rein." 

And the father rejoined : " Our clothes are given us to 
screen us from sun and rain, and the pestilence which 
walketh in darkness. If your clothing is simpler than 
your kinsmen's, it is that you may not be tempted to 
value the thing more than the strength and swiftness 
for which the thing is given." 

Again the word came that the chiefs and their children 
should carry each his offering to the temple at Mecca. 
And this father, with his wife and his children and forty 
attendants v^ent to the holy city, with fifty camels and 
fifty horses. The offering that he made was bezoar and 
onyx and myrrh. Seventy days were they in going, in 
sojourning, and in returning. 

On the seventieth day, as they approached the 
date-palms which they knew, the fourth son asked 
leave to speak to his father, and said: "Why do the 
people of the city go to the mosque to worship God, and 
we kneel beneath the open sky? " 

And his father was troubled, and his countenance 
fell, and he said: "Since we left the city have either of 
your brothers or your sisters spoken untruly?" 

" Never, my father." 

"Or impurely? " 

"Never." 

"Or meanly?" 



AN ARABIAN TALE. 141 

"Never.*' 

"Have tliey turDecl from a beggar? Have they failed 
to share their salt ? " 

"Never." 

' ' Have they refused to their mother all that was her 
due?" 

"Never." 

"And has God seemed far away from you because the 
sky is higher than the temple dome ?" 

"Never so near, my father, as when I sleep on the 
sands beneath the stars." 

And his father said, "The temple is built lest in 
cities men forget the God of love. If you Avorship 
beneath the stars, it is that you may not be tempted to 
honor the stones more than Him who made the stones; to 
value his house more than Him who dwells everywhere." 

At last the old man was sick unto death. His four 
oldest sons had gone with their households, one north, 
one south, one east, one west. He called his youngest 
son to close his eyes, and said to him: "My son, hast 
thou ever seen Satan ?" 

And the son said "iVe^er." 

His father said, "Yet you have been at feasts of tbe 
heads of tribes, where the revels lasted many days." 

The son said, " Others saw him there, but not I." 

His father pursued, "You lived many, many months 
among princes of Cairo, where men seek pleasure and 
pay for it with money." 

The son said, " Others saw him there, but not I." 

The father said, "Not where I sent you to join the 
caravans of merchants at Medina?" 

The son answered, "If others saw him there, not I." 

The father said, "Not when you lived among the 
learned men and doctors at Tabriz ?" 



142 . AT LAST. 

And the son said, " If others saw him there, not I." 
And the father said, "It is enough. My boy, if 
your children are not tempted by the flesh, they will 
not be tempted by the eye; if the eye is pure, the head 
will be strong; if the head be strong, the heart will be 
true; if the heart is true, your child will know his God. 
My son, pray for your children, that they enter not into 
temptation." 

And he turned his face to the wall and he died. And 
his five sons are the chiefs known as the Five Stars of 
Koreisch — pure, peaceful, gentle, true, and brave. 



AT LAST. 

By George C. Hurlbctt. 

We met beneath the overarching trees; 
I held thy hand, how calmly! in my own. 
Thy dark eyes on me for a moment shone, 
Deep with the depth of silent sympathies, 
And longings yet unbreathed: all the soul sees 
That might be in the vast and vague unknown 
Of life, and death, and love; and Love alone, 
Life's lord and death's, filled all those silences 
That fell between us: and the words we read 
Under the noon, beside the shining lake, 
With whispers of the forest; and the flush 
Of sunset, the pale stars, and night, that fled 
Dreamful, and day's young beauty; — what shall make 
These cease to be, or teach unrest to hush ? 



THE WORLD OWES ME A LIVING. 143 



THE WOKLD OWES ME A LIVING. 

By a. S. Hallidie. 

If the world owes you a living, why does it not owe a 
living to every one ? And if to every one, by the sv/eat 
of whose brow should that living be made ? 

Nature is unequal in its gifts, and its gifts are un- 
equally distributed. While some localities teem with 
all the luxuries that prodigality and abundance can 
command, others are barely provided with enough to 
sustain the inferior life existing there. The ever re- 
curring production and reproduction of life, goiDg on 
with endless effort, and producing in the briefest exist- 
•ence of the most minute animal, the various stages be- 
tween infancy and senility, each full of its activities, in- 
dicate that life has to be earned by the individual 
efforts of the most insignificant. It would indeed be an 
unfortunate condition if it could traly be said by any 
one that the world owes him a living; and it would be a 
monstrous perversion of the scriptural injunction to 
man to ** earn his bread by the sweat of his brow." 

If the world really owes a living, and provides not by 
the spontaneous growth of life-giving elements, what re- 
mains for man but death? Such a statement can only 
be the expression of sheer despair or utter shiftlessness; 
and the young man who believes that the world owes 
him a living, must, from the very nature of things, while 
acting the part of a parasite, become an outcast. Such 
a sentiment as this cannot be spontaneous, because 
the natural habits of life are active, and directed in a 
greater or lesser degree to economic ends; its existence 
indicates a low standard of morals, a laxity of public 
spirit, an absence of ordinary parental training, and can 



144 THE WORLD OWES ME A LIVING. 

only be suggested by excuse or generated by indolence. 
This sentiment cannot exist where the proper princi- 
ples of life have been instilled in youth, and a neglect 
so to do brings in return a curse on the parents, doubly 
disastrous, developing at a period of life when youths 
are least able to resist its terrors! 

The world owes no one a living; on the contrary, no 
person in ordinary health can live in indolence and be 
morally good. Every one must earn enough, at least, 
to feed and clothe himself. He who fails in thus direct- 
ing the intelligence of his child, fails in one of the most 
essential duties of life, and commits a crime against his 
fellow-beings. Moreover, early instruction and prac- 
tice in habits of industry, discipline the mind and body 
so that at maturity the labors of life are lightened from 
the fact that the heavier duties are performed cheer- 
fully; and thus by a better balancing of the faculties, 
there is a fuller appreciation of the good and the beau- 
tiful, and man becomes more and more in the image of 
his Maker. As indolence is the mother of evil, does 
not the failure to correct that indolence when it is the 
duty and in the power of one to inculcate habits of in- 
dustry in others, make him jja?^ificey3-s criminis ? Many 
of the vices and crimes of youth in this city are doubt- 
less caused by that depraved sentiment that the world 
owes them a living. The Avorld owes the profligate 
nothing but ruin ! a debt it is sure to pay, if they do not 
reform. For man, the most perfect creation of the Al- 
mighty — full of mental and physical activity — to be a 
non-producer, is against all reason, all law, and all na- 
ture. 

But society and fashion do not fancy the common 
forms of industry, and look with contempt on hands 
hardened and stained by honest labor. Out upon such 



THE WOELD OWES ME A LIYING. 145 

society! It is unworthy of the age and unworthy of it- 
self. It exists only by consent of that miserable public 
sentiment which panders to pride and wealth and scoffs 
at humility and poverty. Yet the public sentiment can 
live only through the public, and if that public is the 
people, where then does that sentiment spring from, and 
in whose hands is the corrective? Among so much that 
is grievous and which exists by the silent acquiescence 
of the aggrieved, there are signs of better times and 
better things. Our duty as simple citizens is to see 
that labor and industry be honorable, and being honor- 
able, that they be nurtured into strength, so that they 
may rise above the false sentimentality of the day, and 
assert themselves in the interest of good morals and 
good government. 

To this end let us create opportunities for industrial 
development. See that willing hands and clear heads 
have productive work; and more especially that the 
youths of our country be encouraged in the first duty 
to the State, to help the commonvv^ealth by their intelli- 
gent labor honestly directed, and we may rest in the 
trust that we shall soon have a Christian, God-fearing 
people in California. 



* * * The following' quotation from "Hamlet, "is the most appro- 
priate that I can recall at present; I trust it wi]l meet your wishes. 

Truly yours, 

Edwin Booth. 

I 

*'If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it 

will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come : the readiness 

is all: Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is 't 

to leave betimes?" 

10 



146 A millionaire's dream. 



A MILLIONAIKE'S DKEAM. 

By Beacebridge Hemyng. 

Monopolies and monopolists are by no means con- 
fined to the Eastern and Northern states. The art of 
amassing money and controlling enormous vested inter- 
ests flourishes to a great extent on the Pacific slope, 
■where the dreams of Aladdin and his wonderful lamp 
have been fullv realized. To us the names of Yander- 
bilt, Stewart and Astor, Belmont, Morgan and Ship- 
man, are synonymous with fabulous sums; but Sharon, 
Jones, Flood and O'Brien are to Californians what the 
former are to New Yorkers. It is but thirty years ago 
that a few Argonauts went out in search of the Golden 
Fleece, and found it in the Golden State. Then began 
the days of the new El Dorado. Then it was that the 
gold fever attracted people from all parts of the world 
to that wonderful shore, the beds of whose rivers were 
like that of fabled Pactolus, said to be strewn with yel- 
low gold. California went through the experience which 
Australia had formerly undergone. The hardy 'Forty- 
niners built up for themselves a splendid city, which 
to-day is the pride of the Union, and large fortunes be- 
came the order of the day. A name to conquer with, 
until within a fcAv years ago, was that of Ealston, who 
was the leading man of the far west. His energy was 
prodigious, his power immeasurable, his ambition un- 
bounded; but he fell, as we all know, and died one day 
while bathing in the bay. It is unquestionable that he 
was drowned, but opinion was divided at the time as to 
whether he was drowned accidentally or by design. It 
is not our purpose to discuss that matter, but we say 
unhesitatingly that when Mr. Ralston died, California 



A millionaiee's dream. 147 

lost ouG of its best men, a public-spirited citizen, and a 
man who Avas always using liis great wealth to the best 
advantage. Many are the stories told about him in San 
Francisco, redounding to his advantage. If a business 
man, with an idea, wanted capital to give him a start, 
he applied to Ealston, who seldom, if ever, sent him 
emptj'-handed away. He did not believe in giving alms, 
for it is notorious that charity leaves a man as poor as 
it found him, but he would help a man to help himself. 

** I went to Balston," a prosperous gentleman told us, 
'* when I wanted to start in the lumber business at Cal- 
istoga. He looked at me, without speaking a word, 
until he had heard all I had to say, and I could see he 
was weighing my words and reckoning up their value 
all the time. 

"^You'll Avant about five thousand dollars,' he ex- 
claimed when I had finished, *and you can afford to 
pay seven per cent, for it.' 

' ' That was precisely what I had reckoned on myself, 
though I had not hinted at any sum, and it showed the 
man's business capacity and penetration to reckon it so 
exactly. I intimated that it would do very well, thanked 
him for taking so much interest in me, and told him I 
should owe my success in life to him. 

" ' Don't waste your breath,' he said in the same im- 
passive manner, 'you haven't got it yet; call on me in 
a week from to-day.' 

" I retired, and subsequently ascertained that he had 
sent some one to make inquiries about me. These were 
apparently satisfactorily answered, for when I again pre- 
sented myself at tl>e Bank of California he had every- 
thing arranged for me. 

"Giving me a nod, he handed me a document to read 
and sign, after which he handed me a check for the 
amount, the same having been already drawn out. 



148 A MILLIONAIRE'S DREAM. 

" * There's your money,' lie exclaimed, 'you can keep 
it till it suits you to pay it, but if you don't pay the inter- 
est promptly, I shall think I have been deceived in you 
as a business man, and shut you up without any warn- 
ing. I want men to work for me. I must have workers. 
Scheming is no good without work. Eemember that. 
Good day.' 

**0f course I took very excellent care that he should 
find me a worker, and he never had cause to complain 
of his investment." 

Ralston firmly believed that the best way to develop 
a new country was to stimulate enterprise, and even the 
socialists of San Francisco, avIio look with envy, hatred 
and malice on the dwellings on Nob Hill, say that they 
would not hate capital so bitterly if the capitalists would 
help the struggling poor. But as a rule capital has a 
tendency to seek safe investments. It has been well 
said that nothing is so timid as one million of dollars, 
except — two millions. In England, capital goes into 
the three per cent, consols; in France into the four per 
cent, rentes; and in America we have just seen fifty 
millions of four and one half per cent, bonds sold by 
the syndicate. Balston was the friend of the producer. 
He created a class and then took their money. He did 
not find them ready made to his hand. He unfortu- 
nately excited the jealousy of other speculators, and he 
owed his downfall to a heavy combination against him 
on the part of Flood and O'Brien. "When he fell and 
passed away he left a splendid record behind him. His 
affairs went into the hands of Sharon, who acquired 
nearly the whole of his property. Senator Sharon is 
now the owner of the Palace Hotel, which is the grand- 
est in the world. We are familiar Avith the Grand, the 
Louvre, the Splendide, in Paris; the Langham, the Char- 



A millionaiee's deeam. 149 

iiig Cross, the Palace and tlie Cannon-Street, in London; 
we have sojourned at the Palmer House and the Grand 
Pacific in Chicago; New York and Saratoga hotels have 
given us a temporary home, but beyond all comparison 
the Palace Hotel in San Francisco is the finest of them 
all. This was the offshoot of Halston's genius, and so 
vast is his caravansary, and so great the expense of con- 
ducting it, that it does not pay without a daily average 
of seven hundred guests. In this enterprise he was a 
little in advance of his time and the requirements of his 
city, but under the able management of Warren Leland, 
that prince of caterers, the hotel has been made to pay 
expenses. Halston lived at a house he built for himself 
under the shadow of the Bedwood Hills at Belmont, a 
few miles by railroad from San Francisco. Everything 
that taste could suggest and money supply was central- 
ized at Belmont. Here it pleased him to surround him- 
self with society. If any people at all notable in any 
way were stayiDg in San Francisco, his hospitality was 
sure to be extended to them, and the fame of Belmont 
and its princely entertainer spread all over the civilized 
world. He would be up at daybreak in the morning, 
driving about his estate, making alterations here and 
improvements there; at ten he would be in the city, 
leaving his guests to enjoy themselves as they thought 
fit. There were sixty horses in his stable, as many as 
the Prince of Wales keeps at Marlborough House, Lon- 
don. Wines of the choicest vintage sparkled on his 
tables, and the dinners were always the best that money 
could provide and a Parisian cook prepare. He in- 
tended to go on beautifying and adding to his country 
house until it w^as perfect. Here he intended to spend 
his declining years, surrounded by luxury, comfort, and 
that solace which troops of friends can alone give to the 
high minded humanitarian. 



150 A millionaire's dream. 

**I don't live for myself," said lie frequently; '* I live 
for the people." He might have added that he lived for 
the world, and his example ought certainly to be handed 
down to posterity; for though a millionaire, he was 
also a philanthropist. He loved money, but he loved 
his kind also, and he looked upon wealth as a means of 
doing practical good. He did not come to you with a 
tract in one hand and a dollar in the other. He looked 
upon man as a working animal, and he wanted to see 
everybody doing something. Stagnation and a dead- 
lock of idle poverty was what he hated. It is sad that 
he was cut off in his prime, for he did not live to enjoy 
Belmont, or even complete it, as he had wished. It is 
a strange parody on his intentions, that the proprietors 
of the Palace Hotel talk of converting Belmont into a 
country villa, for the accommodation of visitors to the 
hotel who wish to get away from the noise and bustle of 
the city. Perhaps Halston would not have objected to 
such a use being made of his house, because it is mak- 
ing it serviceable. Better that than to have it idle and 
shut up. Last year, being in San Francisco, we were 
invited by Mr. Sharon to spend a few days at Belmont. 
It is prettily situated, and capable of accommodating 
over fifty visitors. The rooms are spacious, and ele- 
gantly furnished. The walls, even to the stair-case, are 
hung with oil paintings, but they are very poor speci- 
mens of the artist's handiwork. Evidently Halston was 
not a judge of paintings; but Avhat seemed most strange 
was that he had no library. Here was a curious omis- 
sion. There was not a book in the house. Probably his 
reading was confined to the daily newspaper and a spe- 
cial study of the stock list and price-current. We know 
that his existence was not one of lettered ease. He had 
little or no time for reading. May be he intended to 



A millionaire's dream. 151 

make up for that when he retired from business. It is 
certainly characteristic of a new country that there is 
very little reading done in it; that comes afterwards. 
At first the struggle for existence is so fierce that books 
are a superflous luxury. The open-handed hospitality 
of the West was well preserved in him. Horses and 
carriages were at one's disposal all day long. We were 
given dinners which were banquets; in a hall near the 
billiard-room, placed on a bujffet were, night and day, 
decanters of wines and spirits and boxes of cigars. You 
were not asked if you would drink or smoke. You 
knew it was there, and all you had to do was to go and 
help yourself v/hen you had a mind to. 

" Was it so in Ealston's time?" we asked. 

''Yes, sir," was the reply. ''He always said, 'give 
'em all they want, and don't let 'em have to ask for it.'" 

Is not this the true essence of politeness? Could 
any of the oiled and curled scions of the house of Vere 
de Yere, in whose veins runs the blood of Norman Earls, 
do more ? We think not. This ready hospitality of 
the West speaks for itself. 

Ealston lived at a time when money was more easily 
made than it is now. In these days, the San Franciscans 
look at a silver dollar before they spend it, and hang on 
to their huge twenty-dollar gold pieces until obliged to 
break them. Consolidated Virginia stock is not now 
selling at $500 a share, and you can buy Hale & Nor- 
cross or Exchequer for a song. Last April we were in 
the Stock Exchange building with Mr. McDonald, the 
great "bear" operator. Our conversation lasted twenty 
minutes. " Do I look excited?" he asked. "Not at 
all," we replied. "I thought perhaps," he continued, 
"that I might have been a little absent-minded, for I 
was listening to the voices of the brokers. While I 



152 A millionaire's DllEAM. 

have been conversing with yon I have made just 
seventy thousand dollars ! " "I suppose, " we remarked, 
"that in Ralston's time things were even livelier than 
that?" "You can bet they were," he rejoined. "I 
have seen Ralston come in here, and his brokers have 
turned over a quarter of a million for him before lunch- 
time. We are no slouches here." 

We went away wishing that we were a " bear," and 
that the mantle of Kalston had descended on our shoul- 
ders. Undoubtedly there has been more speculation in 
stocks — the mushroom mines of California and Nevada — 
in San Francisco, within the last ten years, than any- 
Avhere else since the days of the Tulip mania in Holland, 
John Law's Mississippi scheme in Paris, and the South 
Sea bubble in London. Everybody speculated. The 
woman who washed your clothes at a dollar a dozen 
had twenty shares in the Best & Belcher; and the 
hack driver who took you home from the theater was 
happy in the possession of a dozen in Ophir. The air 
reeked with speculation. The wealth of the country 
was believed to be fabulous and inexhaustible. The 
millenniam was at hand, and everybody was going to be 
rich and die happy. How far this expectation was re- 
alized, Mr. Kearney and his socialists will probably tell 
us. Balston never thought he was going to be poor. 
At one time the bare idea of any one getting a "corner" 
on him in gold, would have seemed supremely ridiculous. 
But those things which we deem the most unlikely to 
happen are of::en the first to occur. Many of the dwell- 
ers in Menlo Park miss their rich neighbor very much. 
The expression of regret is well nigh universal. "There 
is no man like him now, sir," said one of his old ser- 
vants-. "Times have changed; things are notwhat they 
used to be." 



A millionaire's dream. 153 

'* What do you mean?" we inquired, eager for inform- 
ation. 

' ' He'd go about among the folks, and if he saw any 
one doing well, he'd help him to do better, and if he 
saw a fellow going down the hill, for no fault of his 
own, he'd put the financial skid on and just make things 
go the other way." 

"You regret his death, then?" 

*'I do, indeed, sir. This house doesn't seem like 
itself at all. Senator Sharon is seldom here and the 
place is dead. It's Belmont no more." 

It is evident Ralston was the presiding genius, and 
that whatever importance the place possessed has de- 
parted. It was his dream; the dream of a millionaire. 
An empty, vanished phantasm, if you will, but still the 
yearning of a great mind. He wanted to show the 
world w^hat he could do with his millions in this charm- 
ingly romantic little spot under the redwoods. It was 
to be a standing monument to his name. People were 
to associate him with Belmont and Belmont Avith him. 
For this purpose he lavished hundreds of thousands 
upon it. With this end in view he kept open house. 
It was his pride and his hobby. When Cleopatra dis- 
solved a pearl, worth a king's ransom, in vinegar and 
drank it, she did it to make her name go down to pos- 
terity. W'hen Erostratus set fire to the temple of Diana 
at Ephesus, he wanted to be remembered forever as 
having destroyed one of the seven wonders of the world. 
So it was with Ralston. His darling Belmont, when 
it was completed as he intended to complete it, would 
live after he was dead and be talked of as is the 
Duke of Devonshire's Chatsworth, or the famous 
*'Stowe," over which Buckingham expended two for- 
tunes. Lately we have seen the great financier, Albert 



151 A millionaire's dream. 

Grant, building himself a mansion at Kensington for 
.£800,000, and failing before its completion. Fre- 
quently the dreams of millionaires are not destined to 
be realized. Fortune plays with them as a cat does 
with a mouse. She raises them to the highest pinnacle 
of prosperity, only to dash them headlong into the abyss 
of failure and despair. Daniel Drew is an example of 
this; Pacific Mail Stockwell is another; Bonner is a 
third. We might amplify the list, but it is enough to 
say that every country has its Halstons, and their fates 
are very similar in many cases. 

Possibly, if the idea of the Palace Hotel authorities is 
carried out, and Belmont becomes a summer villa for 
the hotel residents, the very name of. Belmont will sink 
into oblivion. The mansion will be called the " Palace 
Villa," and be made a little chapel of ease for the big 
building in the town. People will not ask themselves 
who built it_, and all they will bother themselves about 
will be paying their bills and seeing that they have 
such accommodation as their money is worth. The mil- 
lionaire's dream will not be realized. No one will in 
the future associate Belmont with him. When those 
who have known him — and the '49-ers are dying out 
rapidly — have passed away to find a last resting-place 
under the green sod, no one will think of the bold specu- 
lator and the brilliant schemer — the ambitious banker 
will be forgotten. So pass the glories of the world. 
The pyramids- still exist, but we know not who built 
them or what their design was; and as Byron says in 
Don Juan: 

" On monuments let not you or I set our hopes. 
Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheo^os." 

Mr. Blackburn, proprietor of the Alhambra, San 
Francisco, himself a 49-er, said to us : 



KEVEBIE IN A BALLOON. 155 

''The death of such men as Ealston is an irreparable 
misfortune for our community; he cannot be rephiced. 
We feel it every day." 

" But you have other men as public-spirited?" 
"No, sir. AYe are coming down to rock bottom. If 
I may parody a popular song, I will say: 

' He was a man cut off in the height of his bloora, 
Brought down to hard pan, and gone up the flume/ 

*' Why, sir, it don't pay me now to give a cold boiled 
salmon for a free lunch. That's how things are in 
'Frisco. Many a young fellow^ who has come on here 
from the east, hoping to make a fortune, has been glad 
to take up with sheep-herding in the Sierras. We live 
fast here, and can't afford to starve. Half of us have 
forgotten Balston, and nobody but a stranger thinks 
anything of Belmont." 

Poor Balston; poor millionaire. Alas! for his dream. 
We are constrained to think of the pathetic line in the 
play of Hip Van Winkle : * 

" Are we so soon forgotten when we are dead ?'* 



EEVEEIE IN A BALLOON. 

By Miss Lizzie I, Wise. (Aeronaut. ) 

Whene'er I mount on ether's wing, 

To seek the heavenly air, 
To hear the zephyr angels sing, 

It fills my soul with prayer. 

When fleecy clouds around me play 

Like spirits of the air, 
And fan me with their ambient spray, 

I feel like staying there. 



156 GEORGE AND I. 



GEOKGE AND I. 

By Barton Hill. 

George S and I were friends and close compan- 
ions, years ago, in Rochester, New York. George 
worked in a hardware store, and I in the composiDg- 
room of the "Rochester Courier." Misfortune over- 
took us by the burning of the '* Courier " office and the 
closing of the hardware store, within a few days of each 
other, and we found it very difficult to pass the time, 
and quite impossible to find employment. Still, we 
did not lose heart, but every evening George and I met 
at his mother's house to frame our plan of application 
for the morrow, and to listen to the plaintive Irish bal- 
lads sung by his two sisters, whilst we boys played an 
old-fashioned rubber at whist with the father and 
mother. We were as hopefully sanguine as boys of 
that age always are, and found the advertising columns 
of " Help Wanted " very interesting reading. The fore- 
noon of each following day was consumed in vainly an- 
swering the advertisements, and in the afternoons we 
kept our blood and spirits active by brisk walks, often 
on snow-shoes that we had brought from Lower Can- 
ada, — to the delight of the curious western New York- 
ers, who hailed us " Ka-nucks." One day, a Professor 
Eastman came to town, and advertised an evening class 
in writing, and also in book-keeping by double entry. 
Here was our chance, we thought; once become accom- 
plished penmen and thorough book-keepers, and no one 
would reject our application for a situation again. So 
we entered the evening class, and worked so earnestly 
that George and I were soon at the head of the class, 
obtaining our diplomas without difficulty. The profes- 



GEORGE AND I. 157 

sor paid me the compliment of stating to the scholars that 
I had mastered every transaction, manuscript or printed, 
that it was in his power to assign me, and that I was in 
fact as competent as himself, even to teach the science 
if I chose to do so, and certainly to take a situation as 
book-keeper in any banking or business house in the 
city. Armed with such credentials, we attacked the 
advertisers again with vigor, only to meet with inglo- 
rious defeat, until the question, " What are we to do?" 
became a serious and very diflQcult one to answer. Sud- 
denly a bright idea occurred to us — we would teach 
book-keeping! We felt quite competent to do it, and 
had not the professor assured us of our efficiency. 

A.t once our young, fresh minds, — very young, very 
fresh, — were made up; we would teach book-keeping. 
Where should we begin? I suggested Belleville, a 
thriving little town in Avestern Canada. We consulted 
our pockets and the map, and concluded we could reach 
Belleville, and by a strict economy live there a month, 
by which time we hoped to be on the road to fortune in 
our new vocation. We felt sure that no Professor East- 
man had ever been to Belleville, and visions of a well- 
filled class room, the gratitude of parents, a vote of 
thanks from the mayor and aldermen, and perhaps the 
freedom of the city, made our lives wearisome until we 
arrived at the favored ground of our new venture. It 
was a lovely spot, quite as verdant as ourselves and 
much more modest. We issued our advertisement: 
"Messrs — (well, George and I), Professors of book- 
keeping by single and double entry, would form an 
evening class, or give special instruction at their own or 
pupils' residence. Hours — nine to twelve and two to 
^ve, at the Belleville House, daily." We issued circu- 
lars, too, carrying them ourselves to the "best people 



158 GEORGE AND I. 

ill the city." One day, two days, a week, two weeks 
elapsed, and not one applicant appeared before the new 
Professors! Evidently there were no books to keep in 
Belleville! George and I were astounded; provinces 
were surely as ungrateful as republics; not a single ap- 
plicant for double entry! there must be something rot- 
ten in the state of Belleville. That chance remark 
suggested our next idea. I had bought a new edition 
of Shakespeare, just issued, edited by Professor Hows 
(another professor), *'for schools and families," and 
from which ''the objectionable passages had been care- 
fully expunged." And I also had an "Acting edition of 
Hamlet, arranged in three Acts, by Walter Gay." Here 
was our opportunity. 

"Suppose you give a reading of Hamlet?" said George. 

"The very thing, Til do it!" 

The affair was settled at once. We still had enough 
cash left to hire the "Odd Fellows' Hall," to issue more 
advertisements, more circulars, a single sheet announce- 
poster for the walls, and, last but not least, the tickets 
for sale at the music and bookstores. 

All this Avas done; the hall was secured. George 
and I rehearsed each evening in the surrounding woods, 
he being the enthusiastic and admiring audience, and 
the audience assured me that I should succeed. The 
eventful night arrived. The doors were opened at half- 
past seven; the reading was announced to commence at 
eight. There was no gas in Odd Fellows' Hall, so we 
purchased real wax candles, cut them carefully in halves, 
and tastefully arranged them in the hanging sconces. 
George was to take the tickets at the door, and I, in 
evening dress, with a brand-ncAV pair of lavender kid 
gloves, nervously awaited the trying ordeal. 

Twenty minutes to eight, a quarter, ten minutes, five 



GEORGE AND I. 159 

— eight o'clock arrived, and not a soul had come to hear 
the reading! Nobody wanted to hear '* Hamlet" read 
in Belleville! Yes, at five minutes past eight, steps were 
heard; the public was approaching; our spirits mounted 
with each step, and sank as we saw the owner of the 
hall, accompanied bj his wife„ to whom we had sent a 
complimentary admission ticket. They were very kind, 
and sympathized with our ill-success. After waiting vain- 
ly for a third comer, the gentleman insisted upon our tak- 
ing back the price paid for the hall, and generously 
offered, if we would wait uutil the following week, to 
secure a good attendance by his personal exertions. 
But our pride was too deeply wounded, and we foolishly 
declined the offer, with grateful thanks; took off the kid 
gloves, pocketed the wax caudles, and returned to the 
hotel, sadder, but not wiser boys. 

The clerk of the hotel was disgusted with the apathy 
of Belleville, and told us that if we would take the 
morning boat for Quimby, a few miles away, we could 
secure the Temperance Hall there, and merely by ad- 
vertising in the evening paper, and the aid of a few 
letters, that he spent half the night in writing for us, 
he answered for it, that we should have a crowded 
room, and return with a substantial evidence of the 
difference in literary taste between Belleville and 
Quimby. He was a Quimby man himself. 

George and I not only took his advice, but the morn- 
ing boat, and the wax candles, and evening dress, and 
gloves, and the volume of Shakspeare *' for schools aud 
families," and, finally, the Temperance Hall at Quimby. 
The only thing we neglected to take was sufiicient time 
to let the Quimbians know anything about it. We 
lighted the wax candles, opened the doors, took our 
stations, George at the door and I on the platform — and 



160 GEORGE AND I. 

patiently waited for the aesthetic Quimbians. But they 
staid at home, not a blessed soul arrived, not even the 
owner of the hall, not even his wife, not even the editor 
or reporter of the paper, the one paper of Quimby, that 
should have immortalized me as a reader! Disdaining 
to acknowledge our discomfiture, we took down the wax 
candles, took off the gloves, and back to Belleville wo 
went the following day, satisfied that we were living in 
the wrong quarter of the globe. The clerk of the hotel 
charitably accepted my silver watch as compensation 
for our hotel bill, and George and T returned to Boches- 
ter, arriving there Avith twenty-five cents each in our 
pockets, minus the silver watch, but plus the kid gloves, 
the wax candles, and the experience. 

Let me add that I never attempted to read from 
Shakespeare again, that is to say, in public, and that I 
have always boasted of being the only "leading man " 
who never attempted Hamlet. The public of other 
cities can at all events thank Belleville and Quimby, 
Canada West, for that good fortune; but what I might 
have accomplished in the character will never be known 
to any one, save ''George and I." 



I am not able to discover the town or village of Quimby registered 

either in the list of post towns, telegraph stations, Lippincott's Gazeteer, 

or any map of Canada procurable in California; yet it is impressed upon 

my memory by the above described visit. Either that visit obliterated 

Qaimby from existence, or Mr. Lippincott may be induced by this true 

st;)ry to publish it in his next edition as a very quiet, — too quiet— but 

charming little town upon the Bay of Quinte, possessing a fine hall, but 

no audience. 

B. H. 



I 



MINING LIEE AT SHASTA. 161 



MINING LIFE AT SHASTA IN 1849. 

By John S. Hittell. 

In a company of gold-hunting adventurers, which 
crossed the continent with ox-teams, I arrived at Shasta 
at the end of September in 1849. We spent more than 
four months and a half in coming from the Missouri 
river to the Sacramento, a distance which I have since 
made by rail in less than four days and a half! Most of 
the twenty thousand men who came that season by the 
** South Pass" route, through the valleys of the Platte 
and the Humboldt, had ox-teams and walked all the 
way. The distance, as traveled by the company to 
which I belonged, was two thousand four hundred 
miles, including three hundred miles extra; Lassen's 
*' cut-off," as it was called for the purpose of deceit, 
being so much longer than the main road from which 
we were induced to turn off. I considered myself more 
fortunate than my companions generally, for after 
promenading fifteen hundred miles, I found an oppor- 
portunity, the first one after leaving the Missouri, to 
buy a horse, though I could not have made the pur- 
chase if his back had not been sore, and his skin so 
tough that I could not whip him into a trot. Bat the 
toil of walking in the heat and dust was not an un- 
mixed misfortune. Many who at starting were pale, thin, 
dyspeptic, soft in muscle, Aveak in appetite, thin in 
chest and languid in motion, after five months on foot 
in the open air at a high elevation, found themselves 
regenerated physically, looking and acting as if from 
early childhood they had had exceptional health and 
strength. 

On the Lassen route we crossed the main " divide" of 
11 



162 MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 

the Sierra Nevada near latitude 42°, and came down 
through the basins of the Pitt and Feather rivers to Sac- 
ramento. Oar impressions of California on our way- 
down from the summit were most unfavorable. For 
nearly two hundred miles we journeyed among rugged 
and bare mountains, sage-brush being a prominent feat- 
ure of the vegetable kingdom, the rattlesnakes of the 
animal and lava of the mineral. Water and grass were 
scarcities; our cattle suffered more than in the Hum- 
boldt valley, and the road was much rougher than in 
the Rocky mountains. It was harder to descend the 
Sierra Nevada on the west than to ascend on the east. 

Nor when we reached the bank of the Sacramento 
were we impressed more favorably. Though we were 
at the base of an immense mountain range, there were 
no springs and no brooks flowing out acioss the valley 
into the main stream. The country looked as dry as a 
desert. We were camped near the home of an American 
reputed to have thousands of cattle, but he had no 
orchard, no garden, no cornfield, no green pasture, noth- 
ing like cultivation. Though there were thousands of 
cows, no milk, butter or cheese could be had. There 
were not even any chickens. We could explain the facts 
to our satisfaction only by supposing that there was 
something in the soil or climate unsuited for agticulture. 

The few white men appeared to be thriftless. They 
were always on horseback, or had their horses saddled 
and bridled at the door; they had immense spurs, bits 
and saddles that looked cruel to us; they nearly always 
rode at a gallop; they dressed in Mexican fashion, con- 
venient enough for the saddle but not convenient for 
ordinary work; and we never saw them with the wagon, 
the plow or the axe, which we had been accustomed 
to see as the constant accompaniments of pioneer life in 
the basin of the Upper Mississippi. 



MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 163 

Neither did the domestic conditions present any at- 
tractive features to our astonished perceptions. The 
houses had no flowers, yards, stables, barns^ or out- 
buildings. The walls were of dried mud inside and out, 
with no floors save the bare earth. The kitchen and 
bedroom furniture were of the simplest if not of the 
shabbiest pattern, and were usually filthy. We inquired 
whether what we saw was not exceptional, and were told 
that the dwellings which we had the opportunity to in- 
spect were like many others in the valley. The children 
were growing up in ignorance, and the women were 
slovenly. Most of the male Indians not employed as 
vaqueros were entirely nude, and white women and chil- 
dren seemed to think no more of their nudity than of 
that of horses. It did not occur to us that we should 
ever want to spend our lives in California. It might be 
rich in gold but was certainly poor in everything else. 
My dissatisfaction with the country was heightened by 
the torture of the poison-oak, which I treated with dis- 
respectful familiarity on the day of reaching the bank of 
the Sacramento, and I did not get rid of the suffering 
for several years. 

Afterwards we learned to revise many of our opin- 
ions about the country and people. The circumstances 
were entirely different from those to which we had been 
accustomed, and we did not at first appreciate the char- 
acter or the extent of the difference. There were tem- 
porary or local reasons for the Spanish bit, spur, and 
saddle, and for the lack of milk, chickens, gardens, 
maize fields and green pastures. It is enough for the 
present to say that the country which I thought most 
repulsive, became to me in a few years the most at- 
tractive. 

As gold hunting was our business, so our chief inter- 



164 MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 

est was fixed upou the mines. We had seen none on 
our ^YSiJ, although we passed over ground where placers 
were afterwards found. We had left ''the States " in 
May, 1849, when very little gold had yet reached New 
York, and when to many persons it was doubtful 
whether there was any truth in the rumors of the gold 
discovery, or at least whether there would be room in 
the mines for a tenth of the people who had already 
started for them. On our way we had met or heard of 
several persons who brought encouraging reports from 
the mines, but these reports were vague and meager, 
and the main question, whether rich diggings would be 
open for us, was still to be settled. So soon as we 
camped on the bank of the Sacramento, we sent men 
out to get information from the few houses and tents 
within five or sis miles of us. The accounts brought 
in at night were very satisfactory. A dozen men who 
had been at the mines, in response to questions, said 
that the precious metal was abundant, and would be 
for years. Some of them showed large purses full of it, 
many of the pieces weighing half an ounce or more. 
The high wages — sixteen dollars a day for common 
labor, — though there was no demand for it in our im- 
mediate vicinity; and the high prices paid for merchan- 
dise, muslin being a dollar a yard, and flour half a 
dollar a pound, though two years before not a quarter 
so much was charged, were cited as proofs of the profits 
of mining. We were told that twenty dollars was the 
average yield of a day's work in the mines, in the rich 
districts, but that the more skillful and industrious men 
made one hundred dollars, and the lucky ones fre- 
quently got G.YQ hundred dollars. It was considered 
nothing rare for a man to get together fifteen or twenty 
thousand dollars in two or three months, if he kept a 



MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 165 

store with a stock of mining tools and provisions, 
whicli in the Eastern States would, not cost one thou- 
sand dollars. We confidently anticipated that within a 
year we should each have twenty thousand dollars, an 
amount that would enable us to return home and live 
with dignified ease in our old homes. 

After satisfying ourselves that there was an abun- 
dance of gold in the country, the next point was to 
select a place where we should establish ourselves. 
Special committees of one were sent out again to the 
men who seemed to know most of the different mining 
regions, to get their advice. Their opinions were con- 
flicting. One who had visited all the diggings from the 
Feather river to the Tuolumne, said the Stanislaus was 
the richest; another, who had a similar experience, pre- 
ferred the Yuba; the North Fork of the American, the 
Mokelumne, and the Calaveras, each had advocates. 
Several who had been at Reading's Diggings argued 
that they were the best for us, because they were the 
newest, the richest, the most remote from San Fran- 
cisco, had the fewest miners in proportion to their ex- 
tent, would not be crowded till the next summer on 
account of the difficulty of access, and we were already 
near them; but they advised us not to go unless we 
were able to take abundant supplies, as a wet winter 
might make the roads impassable. There were no 
steamboats on the river above Sacramento City, and the 
distance was two hundred miles. Several streams, in- 
cluding tbe Sacramento, to be crossed on the way, rose 
to great height during the rains, and had neither bridges 
nor ferries; the floods spread out over much of the val- 
ley, and the soil, where not covered with water, some- 
times turned into a quagmire in the rainy season. 
These circumstances would protect Beading's Diggings 



166 MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 

against being crowded, but might prevent the people 
from getting provisions or tools. This argument im- 
pressed us very favorably, and as our party felt able to 
live in complete seclusion for six months at least, we 
decided in favor of Reading's Diggings, as the region 
within ten miles of the Lower Springs, now known as 
the town of Shasta, was then called. Pearson B. Read- 
ing, who owned a Mexican grant on the western bank 
of the Sacramento, ten miles away, having visited Sut- 
ter's mill in the summer of 1848, saw that the country 
there closely resembled that in the foot-hills near his 
ranch, returned to his place, and found the placers 
named after him. He was a notable man in his day, 
and was the Whig candidate for Governor in 1851, but 
his memory is now dim. The name of Shasta was 
given to the county, and a railroad station and town 
built on his ranch Avas called Bedding, after a man of 
more note in the later history of the State. 

While we were on our way to the Diggings, and still 
three days from the end of our long journeying, we met 
a party of half a dozen men who had been there. They 
advised us, and even begged us to turn back, told us 
they had given a fair trial to the mines, which they as- 
sured us were worked out, and they predicted that in 
the coming winter the miners, cut off by the bad con- 
dition of the roads from communication with the lower 
country, and insufficiently supplied with food, would 
starve to death. Thev said that most of them would 

a/ 

leave, but had not the means to get away. We had 
uo doubt of the good faith of these men, whose ap- 
pearance, manner and language indicated that they 
were industrious, sober, and though uneducated, not 
unfit to succeed at mining. We were much impressed, 
and somewhat depressed, but we were too near the 



MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 167 

mines to turn back without taking a look at them. We 
camped at night near some men who had pack-horses, 
and after supper paid them a visit, and asked them 
whether they had been at Reading's Diggings. Thej 
said they had. We told them the advice we had re- 
ceived, and wanted to know their opinion. They 
laughed very heartily, and said that in all the mining 
districts we could find such people, who had not practi- 
cal sense enough to pick up the gold when it was in 
plain sight. If they found '^claims" that would pay one 
hundred dollars a day to the man for a year, they would 
abandon them or sell out for a trifie, and spend months 
in hunting for something that would pay two hundred 
dollars. The leading man of the party then said he 
would convince us, and untying from a pack-saddle a 
heavy canvas bag, he took out from one end five or six 
immense buckskin purses, which he emptied into a tin 
pan, used for mixing dough, as well as for washing 
auriferous gravel, and filled it three inches deep with 
gold dust, some of the pieces being as large as hen's 
eggs. "The country," said he, "is full of this stuff; 
and every man of you can get more than he can carry. 
You need not be afraid of starving; I am going to spend 
all this and a good deal more for beans, pork and flour 
for these diggings; and I would not do that if they 
were not rich. The traders can make too much out of 
provisions to let anybody starve." That speech revived 
our drooping vspirits; and our party afterwards in the 
mines often amused themselves with repeating the 
phrases and imitating the manner of the men who tried 
to turn us back. Subsequently I knew a chemist and 
metallurgist who had many opportunities to make a 
great fortune, but always failed to seize them, he doing 
the work, while somebody else reaped the profit. It 



168 MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 

was said of him tliat if lie were placed on a lump of 
pure gold as big as a house, with a hammer and cold 
chisel, he would not cut off enough to make a decent 
living. The despondent miners were probably some- 
what like him. 

Another phase of human nature came to the surface 
in our party about the same time. Our company had 
been stopped one day in the Humboldt desert by a Ger- 
man who begged for assistance to California. He could 
speak very little English, and I was called up to serve 
as interpreter. He said he had been hired as a driver 
of an ox-team by a man who had maltreated and defraud- 
ed him, and then driven him off; he was penniless and 
friendless; many trains had passed and refused to take 
him, and if not helped through, he must starve. His 
story was plausible, and the general opinion was that 
he could not be abandoned there, and several men in 
the party said that as I was the only one who could 
speak with him, I ought to take charge of him. My 
messmates seemed to have the same opinion, and I 
consented to do so, telling the man that I had no more 
than I needed for myself, but I would take him along if 
he would drive team for us till we got to the mines, and 
then work till he had paid me back at the rates there 
current for provisions. He declared that he owed his 
life to me, and would pay me tenfold. This man, find- 
ing that I was to ride ahead and reach the mines two 
days in advance of the wagons, for the purpose of se- 
lecting a camping-place, grumbled because I w^as going 
to make two hundred dollars before any of the others 
got to the mines, and he said that as he was the oldest, 
he ought to have been sent ahead. This fellow never 
paid a cent, and after we reached the mines, wanted to 
live at my expense without paying even for his food. 



MINING LIFE AT SHASTA 169 

On our arrival afc the mines, we found ourselves at an 
elevation of about fifteen hundred feet above the sea, 
in the foothills of high mountains. The soil was a 
gravelly clay, and was pierced in many places by pro- 
jecting points of slate rock. The vegetation consisted 
mostly of oak, nut pine and pitch pine, with an under- 
growth of manzauita, poison-oak, and various other 
bushes. The grass was scanty and dry; no sign of 
moisture could be found near the surface; there were 
only two springs, and no streams within miles; and in 
some places where the diggings were rich, the miners 
could not stay for the lack of water. Near the lower 
springs the work was all dry digging — that is, scraping 
over the dry dirt found next to the bed-rock in the 
gullies and picking out the pieces of gold. My first 
occupation was to sit down and watch an Oregonian. He 
had arrived by land in the previous spring; had visited 
the Stanislaus and Yuba mines, and thought these as 
rich as any. He dug a hole about two feet deep in 
the gravelly clay, shoveling out carelessly so much of 
the dirt, and after loosening the remaining six inches 
next to the bed-rock with his pick, he sat down and 
scraped it over with his knife, throwing away the bar- 
ren material and saving the gold. At intervals of a 
few minutes he threw a particle of metal into a tin 
blacking-box which served as the receptacle of his 
treasure. Some of the particles were no larger than a 
flax-seed, and others were as heavy as five dollars. 
After scraping the surface of the rock clean, he dug 
down into it four or five inches, and between the nearly 
vertical laminae which crossed the gully at right angles, 
he found many pieces, though the rock had appeared 
to be solid. His work was slow, and position, squat- 
ting down in the dirt under a broiling sun, unpleasant, 



170 MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 

but while I sat looking for one afternoon, Lis box col- 
lected two ounces or more of gold. I felt grateful for 
what lie had allowed me to see, and I was pleased with 
the confidence that I could do just as well the next day. 
So soon as breakfast was over, I hurried off with pick, 
shovel, knife, purse, most sanguine expectations, and 
a little perplexity as to what would be the most appro- 
priate use to be made of the two or three ounces to be 
obtained by my first day's work in the mines. I would 
keep that gold separate, and determine in the future 
how it should be appropriated to commemorate a nota- 
ble day in my life. I selected a spot on the Oregonian's 
gully, not very far from him, dug a hole, and began to 
scratch, but after I had cleaned off the rock and dug 
down into it and had found no metal, I suspected that 
I was working too fast, so I got a piece of white mus- 
lin and threw my dirt on it to get a better view of every 
particle; but the gold was not visible. I went up on 
the side of the hill where I could look down on the 
gully and study its general appearance, but I could see 
nothing to indicate poverty or inferiority to the situation 
occupied by the Oregonian. I had worked hard and 
carefully, and my sight w^as good at a short distance. 
The gold ought to be there, and I ought to get it. Those 
were the only conclusions at which I could arrive. I 
went near to the Oregonian, sat down and watched him 
again. He w^as in excellent humor, and when I told 
my trouble, he said that was the way with nearly every 
body at first in dry digging, and said it would come out 
right after a few weeks. Perhaps I had selected a place 
where the bed-rock was too steep or smooth; but the 
oldest miner could not always tell by looking at an un- 
touched claim whether it was rich. He advised me to 
dig several holes, and leave them if I found nothing on 



MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 171 

first reaching tlie bed-rock. While Le was explaining 
matters to me as well as lie could, within an hour he 
took out not less than five dollars. So far as I could 
see, there w^as nothing in his mode of working that I 
could not do as well as he. I took my tools, selected 
another place above him in the same gully, dug a hole, 
scraped the bed-rock, and it was barren. I ate my 
dinner in a mortified mental condition, which was not im- 
proved by finding that the experience of my messmates 
was as unsatisfactory as my own. We had purposely 
gone in different directions, so as to increase the chances 
of having at least one succeed, and then he could in- 
vite the others to join him. In the afternoon I tried 
several other places in the same gully and on an adjoin- 
ing one with no better luck, and went to bed in disgust. 
The next day and the following one I did a little better, 
but did not make enough to pay for my food. Elour 
was worth then, or soon after, two dollars a pound, and 
rice, sugar, cofiee and beans a dollar and a quarter, and 
these prices prevailed until supplies began to arrive 
from the south in the spring. My messmates were not 
quite so unsuccessful as I was, but they were far from 
satisfied. It was evident that dry digging was not to be 
learned without longer apprenticeship than we wanted 
to give to it. 

While we were in this frame of mind, we were ad- 
vised to go to Clear Creek, ten miles away, where we 
would find wet diggings, in which we could do better at 
first. We moved accordingly to the place then known 
as the Middle Bar, afterwards called " One-Horse 
Town," and still later simply Horsetown. There we 
camped and spent the winter. There we found a little 
valley of several hundred acres, at the mouth of a can- 
yon with high and nearly vertical rocky walls, between 



172 MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 

which the creek issued from the steep mountains. At 
the side of the stream there was a long bar of gravel, 
perhaps sixty yards wide, formed by an eddy in the 
current when at flood height. It was the first large bar 
on the creek, and gave an excellent opportunity for the 
gold brought down by the torrent, to lodge. The gravel 
was from a foot to two feet deep, and near the bed- 
rock, which was of slate, with laminae dipping so as to 
make many angles suitable for catching gold, was rich, 
or even very rich. 

The miners at work there, scraped the dirt next the 

bed-rock into pans holding perhaps thirty pounds each, 

and when they had a panful they carried it to the creek 

and washed it, shaking it so that the clay, gravel and 

sand Avere carried away by the water, while the heavier 

gold stayed behind. It required perhaps twenty minutes 

to fill and wash a pan, and the metal obtained varied 

from twenty-five cents to four dollars. Most of the 

miners were making about twenty-five dollars a day. 

The gold was coarse, but was mixed with fine gold, that 

is, pieces like flax-seeds or grains of sand. Several 

miners were working with cradles, in which the gravelly 

clay was shaken with water till it came to pieces, and 

then the water and light material ran out through an 

opening at the lower end, the large gravel was thrown 

out by lifting off the screen-box, and the gold was 

caught behind a cleat. It is a simple and very efficient 

machine as compared with the pan, and enabled two 

men working together to do twice, and in some kinds of 

auriferous deposit, four times as much work as they 

could do with pans, though far inferior to the sluices and 

hjdraulic process afterwards invented. The bar was 

extensive; little of it was claimed; there was abundant 

room for us; we made cradles and succeeded with them; 



MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 173 

we settled down to work and determined to stay there 
through the winter. 

After we had spent several weeks in working with our 
cradles, we found that a log cabin would be necessary 
for health and comfort, as the nights were getting cold; 
so we built one, getting much of the material from two 
or three nut-pine trees which Ave cut down near the 
place where the cabin was to stand. The roof was of 
tent canvas, smeared with pitch picked up" at the base 
of the pine trees. The spaces between the logs were 
filled with mud; the floor was mother earth; the door 
consisted of a piece of canvas; bunks were provided for 
sleeping, and there was a spacious chimney at each end, 
so that two messes could cook at the same time, one of 
four men and the other of three. The house had a 
kitchen, dining-room, bedroom and parlor, all in one 
apartment. 

Before the cabin was finished, the long storm of 1849 
began, early in November, and continued for nearly 
three months. The creek rose so high that the bar was 
covered, and we had to look elsewhere for diggings, and 
we found them in the gullies io the adjacent hills. 
Nearly every gully near us proved to be rich in gold, 
and singular to say, the gold differed greatly in appear- 
ance in different gullies separated by only short dis- 
tances from one another. In most of the ravines, the 
gold was rough and very coarse; in some it was smooth 
and fine; cucumber seed, water-melon seed, pea, wheat, 
and flaxseed gold were the names given to the metal 
from as many gullies, because its pieces resembled 
those articles. Some of the prettiest gold I ever saw 
was dug by myself from a cucumber-seed claim, every 
piece being almost perfect in shape. The miners could 
usually tell by the appearance of the gold where it came 



174 MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 

from, that is, if it Avas from any gullj with which they 
were familiar. The yield in the ravine mining averaged 
from twenty dollars to forty dollars per day to the man, 
and though the work was wet and dirty, the miners 
were cheerful. California was doing better for them 
than they expected when they started, and they were 
always hoping to strike some deposit that would pay 
them a thousand dollars a day. 

The intellectual and social life of our camp was dull. 
The nearest woman was ten miles away, and she was 
neither youthful nor beautiful, and what was worse, at 
least for our interest in her, she had a husband and 
half a dozen children. When a man went across the 
mountains to the Springs, and that was a rare event — 
in sis months I went only once — he was expected to get 
a view of the woman and have something to say about 
her when he returned. There was no female society in 
California for us, nor at that time was there any hope of 
any. We expected to do without it till we could go 
back to the States with fortunes. 

We had no newspapers and no news from abroad. The 
continuous storms and floods cut us off from any regular 
communication with the lower part of the Sacramento 
valley, and the reports which reached the Lower 
Springs, the chief town and center of the district, might 
not come over to us. We had heard that there was 
a movement to organize a State, but we, or at least I, 
did not know till the next spring that a constitution had 
been framed and adopted, and a State government es- 
tablished. Several times in the course of the winter, we 
had chances to send letters to San Francisco by paying 
fifty cents apiece, and in the spring letters were brought 
from there at the same charge. 

There were few books in the camp, and few of the 



MINING LIFE AT SHA'STA. 175 

miners cared to read. If they liad any leisure in the 
evenings, they visited some neighboring cabin or tent 
and exchanged experiences, opinions and rumors about 
the diggings. No two gullies were alike, and everybody 
wanted to hear w^hat was said of those which he had not 
tried. Generally the men were reticent about them- 
selves, preferring to conceal their success, especially if 
exceptional, from all save a few very intimate friends; 
3'et there was no lack of interesting information about 
others. There were no candles, but the fires could be 
made to blaze brightly with pitch pine, if needful for 
reading, writing, or card-playing, but not much of either 
was done. There was no church, no preaching, no 
meeting for religious purposes, but many of the miners 
having been bred in devout families, had their Bibles, 
which a few made a practice of reading on Sundays. 
Generally, however, the day was devoted to prospect- 
ing, washing clothes, and gossiping. 

A quieter and more moral community I never saw. 
There was no liquor for sale, and, so far as I knew, none 
was kept save for medicinal purposes in the camp. 
There was no fighting or quarreling, and until spring 
opened, there was no complaint of stealing save by In- 
dians. There was no officer of the law, nor any need of 
protection for life or property. Cabins were left open 
and unguarded, wdthout fear that they would be plun- 
dered, and frequently gold would be left out in quanti- 
ties of an ounce or two without being disturbed. I had 
a good opportunity to observe the men w'hocame across 
the continent in 1849, and those who were the bulk of 
ihe miners in Heading's diggings in the following win- 
ter, and I can bear witness that as a class they were 
men of whom any country might w^ell be proud. I 
never elsewhere saw a community in which there was 



176 MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 

SO little disposition to idleness, dissipation and crime, 
relatively. The government made a most lamentable 
mistake when, by throwing the Mexican land grants, 
covering the richest agricultural districts then accessi- 
ble, into long litigation, and refusing to recognize any 
permanence of title in the mining regions, it impelled a 
large proportion of these men to abandon California, 
retaining the thriftless, and making room for others, 
including many less reputable. The gambling, drunk- 
enness., and crime which became common in the mines, 
or at least in some of the mining districts, in later years, 
made no appearance at the Middle Bar in the winter of 
184:9-50. Not a dollar changed hands there by cards 
or dice, so far as I saw or heard. 

There v/as no peculiar dialect then or at any subse- 
quent time in California. The miners came from all parts 
of the Union, Great Britain, Ireland, and Canada. Many 
of them v\^ere well-educated men; and in such a gather- 
ing a common dialect was impossible. Individuals re- 
tained much of the pronunciation of their native Mis- 
souri, Vermont, Tennessee, Scotland, England, or Ire- 
land, but generally they spoke English better than the 
country people elsewhere. The dialect put into the 
mouth of the Californian miners by Bret TIarte is, 
to a large extent, original with him. The miners are 
given to slang, some of which has been well recorded by 
Mark Twain. 

The impassable condition of the roads limited the 
supply of physical as well as of intellectual food. The 
staff of life with us was the white bean, baked with pork 
or bacon, and we found it excellent to sustain steady and 
severe muscular exertion, much better than white bread. 
We had our beans every day, and at nearly every meal. 
It was a work of love for us to look at the Dutch oven 



MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 177 

full of beans, the last tliiDg at night and the first thing 
in the morniog, to see whether water was needed inside 
or coals outside to bring the mess to the highest condi- 
tion of palatable flavor. Besides beans, we had flour, 
bard bread, rice, dried apples, coffee, sugar, frequently 
fresh venison, and rarely fresh bear or beef. Except the 
fresh meats, these articles were all such as could be 
kept for years. We had no milk, butter, cheese, fruits or 
garden vegetables, either fresh, canned, pickled or pre- 
served, no canned meats or sardines. Some of these were 
abundant in other mining districts, but there were none 
in our camp, so far as I knew. The dried apples, a few 
wild onions, and some kale (a wild plant akin to the 
cabbage), cooked as greens, protected ns against the 
scurvy. We ate from tin plates and drank from tin 
cups, and each man was expected to wash his own 
dishes — the washing being done usually by rubbing 
with sand, in water, as soap was a scarce article. 

The favorite material for shirts was hickory muslin, 
a thick cotton, with narrow blue stripes. It did not 
show dirt readily, and it washed easilj', and every fel- 
low did his own washing. There were few white shirts 
and no flat-irons in our camp. Our outer clothing was of 
wool, coarse, strong, and usually dirty. Every man was 
a miner, and necessarily got into the mud or dust every 
day. There was no blacking, nor any occasion that re- 
quired an elegant costume. 

The only money was gold dust, current at $1G per 
ounce, either troy or avoirdupois, and nearly every 
cabin had its scales, often home-made, and if they did 
not vary more than a dram or two in the ounce from 
the common standard, there was no complaint. 

In the last half of January the rains ceased, or became 
much lighter; many of the gullies which had paid high 
12 



178 MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 

for several months, no longer Lad running streams, or 
tLeir ricliest spots were worked out; and the miners 
wanted to look for somethiDg better. Thej had been 
shut up for three months, and were restless. They were 
disturbed by rumors that elsewhere a day's work was 
rewarded with $500 or $1000. In our ignorance of the 
manner in which gold had been distributed tlirough the 
placers, we fancied that there was a reasonable chance 
of finding gullies where we could load a two-horse 
wagon with the clean metal in an hour. About forty 
miles to the southwest, in the basin of the Cottonwood 
Creek, were some red hills that looked as if they were 
rich in gold, plainly visible, on clear days, from the 
peaks near. They were in the midst of a region occu- 
pied by hostile Indians, had never been prospected, and 
offered us the opportunity for adventure and perhaps 
for princely wealth. 

Early in February a party of twelve, six with pros- 
pecting tools and six with rifles, which last were to pro- 
tect us against the Indians and provide us with venison, 
started out. Every man carried blankets, and promised 
to carry hard bread enough to last for ten days. The 
country was rugged, and for three days we advanced 
slowly, being beset all the time by the hostile Indians, 
who repeatedly threatened to attack us, scared away the 
game, and prevented any separation for either hunting 
or prospecting. On the fourth and fifth days, the Indi- 
ans did not trouble us, and the hunters killed five deer, 
two of them full grown and three fawns, and the veni- 
son, after dressing must have weighed one hundred and 
fifty or perhaps two hundred pounds, and yet the dozen 
of us ate it all within the two daj^s, averaging at least 
six pounds a day of the meat for each; and besides, our 
supposed supply of bread for ten days had all disap- 



MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 179 

peared on the evening of the fiftli claj. We were nearly 
forty miles from liome, Lad fouud no gold yet, and bad 
nothing to eat, but we expected the hunters to supply 
lis with our daily venison steak. They started out very 
early the next day, to find the deer while feediug, but 
were disappointed. Fortunately for us, the acorns 
stored in the bark on the north side of the nut-pine 
trees by the woodpeckers were abundant and sound. 
Those on the south side, having been soaked by the 
rains, which come from that direction, were spoiled. 
They were hard and bitter, or at least we had thought 
so when we had all we wanted of more succulent and 
palatable food. We had seen Indians eat a peppergrass 
growing there in moist places, and we found it a good 
accompaniment of the dry acorns, and the two had the 
advantage of offering a decided variation from broiled 
venison and baked beans. A ravenous appetite pre- 
pared me to enjoy anything clean and moderately nutri- 
tious, as the acorns and grass were, and though some of 
the party complained of suffering the pangs of starva- 
tion, they must have eaten heartily to do the work 
that was done before getting back to Clear Creek. 
I have no unpleasant recollections of the wild diet, 
and if I should ever visit Shasta county, I shall keep a 
sharp lookout for the pepper-grass. I would rather 
have a dish of it now than of the greatest delicacy on the 
tables of Paris. 

We were not in the best condition for hunting and 
prospecting, but we started out in couples, in different 
directions, agreeing to meet at a specified point about 
four in the afternoon. My companion, Mr. Davis, and 
myself were prospectors, and after going several miles 
we came to a large gully, which we tried in several 
places, finding about twenty-five cents to the pan, or 



180 MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 

enough to pay thirty -five dollars a clay to a man with a 
cradle; and there was enough material to employ two 
dozen men for months. That Avas enough to compen- 
sate us for all the trouble, danger and privation of the 
expedition. We walked a quarter of a mile to a paral- 
lel gully, equally large, and obtained still better results. 
We then started to ascend the ridge, so as to look for 
other gullies worthy of examination, and as we were 
following up the ravine, we came to a place where the 
bed was steep and the clear water was running over bare 
rock, on which numerous little pieces of gold were lying. 
We picked them up on the points of our knives, and in 
half an hour we had about five ounces and a half — forty- 
five dollars each — including many pieces Vv'orth half a 
dollar. The mere specks we left. We went down this 
ravine till we found a deposit of clay on the bedrock, 
and two pans of it when washed yielded five dollars 
each. With such dirt we could make seven hundred 
dollars a day to the man, but we supposed there was 
not much of it. We had tried the richest spots. Wo 
climbed the ridge, selected another large gully, followed 
that down, found forty-dollar diggings, with enough 
ground to occupy a hundred men for a year, and were 
happy. 

We then started for camp, but before reaching it 
rested on a hill from which we could look down and see 
that the six hunters and two of the prospectors were 
already there, and the separate manner in which they 
were lying about in the shade indicated that they had 
neither venison to cook nor good news of any kind to 
talk about. We agreed that we should conceal our suc- 
cess for a little while, so as to enjoy the disappoint- 
ment, and about that time the other pair of prospectors 
came in sight on an opposite hill, and wd resumed our 
course so as to get there about the same time. 



MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 181 

While we were still fifty yards off, one of the hunters 
called out to us, " What luck?" and I answered, ^'Bet- 
ter ask Tattle," who was one of the prospectors ap- 
proaching from the other side. So they turned their 
attention away from us, and when Tuttle had seated 
himself in the shade he gave an account of his prospect- 
ing, the general result being unsatisfactory, though he 
had obtained one piece that weighed an ounce. So far 
as he had washed the dirt in any large gully, it would 
not yield more than twelve or eighteen dollars, and we 
could do better at Clear Creek. Tattle, supposing from 
my manner that we had no news of interest, asked 
Batchelder and his companion, the third pair of pros- 
pectors, what they had, and the reply was, ''Nothing." 

Then he said to me, " Tou ought to have found some- 
thing. I know there is gold in yonder hill." 

I said, "We found the color in several places." 

"Nothing more than the color?" asked he. 

"Yes," said I; "if we had to leave Clear Creek I 
think we could make a little more than our grub here." 

' ' Didn't you find any sample worth saving ? " 

"Yes, we got some little pieces." 

"Let's see them." 

I hesitated and wanted to tell part of my story first, 
but perhaps something in our faces betrayed us, for 
they insisted on seeing the dust without any further 
talk, and when Davis opened the corner of his hand- 
kerchief there was an exclamation of joyful surprise, for 
they assumed that the quantity and quality meant rich 
diggiogs, and that assumption was confirmed when they 
saw that I had as much more. When they heard our 
story they had no doubt that w^e had found placers far 
superior to any near Clear Creek or the Lower Springs. 
Rich as the gullies were about the Middle Bar, none oi 



182 MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 

US liad seen or heard of one in which the gold was found 
in plain sight, or in which the pan would yield $5. We 
supposed that every member of our party was sure of 
half a million at least, and we immediately began to 
consult about the best method of carrying it in safety to 
San Francisco. Some preferred pack-mules and others 
would have wagons; one thought each should travel 
separately; another proposed we should stick together 
and move in an armed body, with a hired guard as an 
additional protection. 

We postponed the final decision of that question till 
we had turned out for our evening graze, and we came 
back smacking our lips over our acorns and grass, 
which had obtained a new relish from the agreeable 
events of the day. We made a large, long fire as usual, 
and sat in front of it to enjoy a little conversation be- 
fore going to sleep. We were more than cheerful; we 
were decidedly jovial. One of our party who happened 
to be well read in Scripture recalled some of the re- 
marks about Nebuchadnezzar and made funny applica- 
cations to our party; we laughed heartily. In our frame 
of mind not much was required to draw out the laughter. 

Nebuchadnezzar, however, did not amuse us so much 
as Aleck Andrews, who said there was only one thing 
needed to make him perfectly happy, and that was to 
get back to Clear Creek and have a good meal of pork 
and beans. We reminded him that when at Clear Creek 
he had a fashion of saying that he would be perfectly 
happy if he could be back for one evening in Fleming 
County, Kentucky, have a dish of ham and eggs and a 
dance with a Kentucky girl. This sliding scale of hap- 
piness was made the subject of much merriment; the 
man who had nothing but acorns and grass would be 



MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 183 

satisfied with pork and beans; when he had an abundance 
of these, then he longed for ham and eggs and a dance 
with a Kentucky girl. 

We had to decide our programme for the next day. 
A few, including myself, wanted to start for home, but 
the majority were anxious to discover diggings still 
richer; and having resolved to go farther, we did so, 
but the hunters killed no deer, the prospectors found 
no gold, and we had another day of aboriginal diet. 

At daylight on the seventh morning we started for 
Clear Creek, estimating the distance as equivalent to 
fifty miles on level ground and without any burden, and 
we knew how much there wac in a mile. We all consid- 
ered ourselves able to make thirty-five miles a day, 
without feeling any the worse for the exertion, or even 
stiff the next morning; and we expected under the exi- 
gency of our case to reach the Middle Bar before night. 
All did so except myself; and I would have succeeded 
if I had not separated from my companions to go round 
the head of a deep canon, and got lost in the mountains. 
I came out all right the next morning. 

As we expected to spend the summer at our new 
diggings in the basin of Cottonwood creek, we pur- 
chased large supplies, got our oxen from EeadiDg's 
ranch, loaded our wagons, took all our portable prop- 
erty from Clear Creek, and moved wdth a heavy 
train, each man taking a partner. Having to make 
a road in many places, we had an arduous time of 
it, while some hundreds of Oregonians, instructed in 
our secret by one of our party, who got drunk at the 
springs, accompanied us with their pack-horses, and 
had a jolly time. When we reached our diggings, they 
sent a committee to us, requesting us to mark off what 



184 MINING LIFE AT SHASTA. 

we claimed, aud we did so without delay or further 
investigation, and they got some of the best ground in 
the district. 

We began work as a joint-stock company, on the 
richest spots, and I dug five hundred dollars the first 
day, but at the end of the third day we w^ere tired of 
the joint-stock business, for several of the men did 
nothing. We divided the gold obtained in the three 
da3'S equally among the members by measure, each get- 
ting a small tin cup full. Afterwards working in 
couples, we at first did very well, but to our great sur- 
prise the gulJies dried up very rapidly, and without 
water we could do very little. In two weeks the Ore- 
gonians left us, after making war with the Indians, 
whom we had conciliated, and in less than a month we 
were back at Clear Creek with no more gold than if we 
had stayed there. 

Of those twelve prospectors, four at least survive. 
Aleck Andrews, the only one who has made his home 
in Shasta county, has represented it several times in 
the Legislature, is a member elect of the State Consti- 
tutional Convention, and has the kindly esteem of his 
fellow-citizens in 1878 as he had of his fellow-miners in 
1849. Noah Batchelder, a respectable gentleman, spends 
much of his time in Shasta. Joseph Yoshay, now a res- 
ident of San Bernardino, and an occasional visitor at 
San Francisco, was known generally at the Middle Bar 
in my time by no name save that of *' Hell-roaring Jo," 
a title more indicative of the undevout spirit prevalent 
among the miners than of any wickedness on Jo's part, 
for he was a general favorite, but very noisy, with a 
constant succession of mirthful ideas. 

In May, 1850, I left the mines, coming down the 
Sacramento river from Monroeville to Sacramento, 



THE SHADOW. 185 

about one hnndrecl and forty miles in a wliale-boat, and 
I paid thirty dollars for a passage on the steamer " Gold 
Hunter,'' from Sacramento to San Francisco. The 
period from May, 1849, till May, 1850, was the most 
eventful, and, in some respects, is to me still one of the 
most interesting in my life. 



THE SHADOW. 

By Eev. Dr. M. J. Savage. 

In a bleak land and desolate, 

Beyond the earth somewhere, 
"Went wandering through death's dark gate 

A soul into the air. 

And still as on and on it fled, 

A waste, wild region through, 
Behind there fell the steady tread 

Of one that did pursue. 

At last it paused and looked aback; 

And then it was aware 
A hideous wretch stood in its track. 

Deformed and cowering there. 

** And who art thou," — he shrieked with fright,- 

"That dost my steps pursue? 
Go hide thy shapeless shape from sight, 

Nor thus pollute my view!" 

The foul form answered him: " Alway 

Along thy path I flee. 
Fin thine own actions: night and day, 

Still must I follow thee." 



186 LA PROVIDENCE. 



LA PKOYIDENCE. 

Bt Victor Hugo. 

Oh ! c'est une douce croyance 

Que celle d'uu efcre divin 

Qui, sous le nom de Providence, 

S'associe a notre destin. 

Dans ce monde oil Ton s'achemine 

Vers un monde inconnu, 
Quand nous naissons, I'ange s'incline 

Sur le pauvre enfant nu. 

Ah ! n'est-ce pas une pensee 
Aussi pure que le ciel bleu, 
Aussi douce que la rosee 
Qui rafraicliit la terre en feu ? 
Malheur ^ ceux dont la science 

Vienfc egarer les pas ! 
Plus heureux, de la Providence 

L'oiseau ne doute pas. 

Sous cent formes elle deploie 
Le zele ardent qui nous previent 
Jetant au marin que se noie 
Une planche qui le soutient; 
Retenant pres du precipice 

L'enfant insoucieux, 
Et prelevant sur I'avarice 

Le pain du malheureux. 



A MOUNTAIN STOEM AND RAINBOW. 187 



A MOUNTAIN STOKM AND EAINBOW. 

By George Jones, the Count Joannes. 

' ' Like to the rainbow, when the tempest dread, 
Surcharg'd with swift-destroying thunderbolts, 
Falls as an avalanche from mountain-peak 
And fills the valley with dark clouds of death, — 
With Hope's bright colors it o'erviews them all." 

The above figure of speech, assumed by Tecumseli in 
my tragedy of that name, I actually witnessed in the 
Kaatskill Mountains. Arriving at the Mansion House 
after night's mantle had shrouded the earth, I could see 
naught but a vast depth of darkness, which precluded 
every thought except the horror of a foot-fall; for upon 
the rock of the southern mountain the imagination can 
readily trace such an accident, even from the death-slip 
— the fall through the nether air, hundreds of feet, the 
screams of the victim, the grave-like silence, till earth 
should embrace him in the arms of death! Such were 
my thoughts in viewing the deep, dark chaos. The 
rock I have mentioned is about three thousand four 
hundred feet above the Hudson river; and from its 
summit, on the following morning, I beheld the dawn 
of nature's glory, — sunrise! The entire expanse of the 
valley was covered with a brilliant silver vapor, which 
being graced by the warm smiles of Apollo, suddenly 
became as a golden sea, in which the naiades of a fabled 
ocean might have gathered to witness the radiant form 
of the Queen of Love, as sea-born she arose to glad the 
world with earthly bliss! When the vapor of the morn- 
ing was dispersed, the plains and hills beneath, em- 
bracing a view of more than one hundred miles, were 
presented to the bewildered sight; the river Hudson 



188 A MOUNTAIN STORM AND RAINBOW. 

seemed merely a bright ribbon in tlie center of the val- 
ley, and the tall pine-trees like the briars of a rose- 
bush; so diminutive appeared every object from the 
great height of the mountain rock. 

On the tliird day, nature exhibited the most sublime 
sight that can be even imagined or portrayed by poetic 
thought, pen or pencil: namely, a mountain storm and 
rainbow. A few hours after mid-day, the winds howled 
through the ravines of the mountains, indicating the ap- 
proach of a tempest. Looking from the rock down upon the 
extensive plain, different strata of air were perceptible; 
for the rack-clouds were moving in several directions, 
blown by the varying winds — east, south and north. 
Suddenly the mountain storm commenced from the 
west, accompanied with '* Jove's dread clamor," and the 
most vivid lightning. The loud and deafening thunder 
shook the very foundation of the Mansion House; huge 
overhanging rocks were shattered and fell into the vast 
abyss; the lightning flashes, from their intense bril- 
liancy, deadened sight into actual blindness, and 
minutes elapsed ere the sense of sight was restored; 
torrents of rain formed new ravines and waterfalls, 
while the furious hurricane deracinated the stately 
pine and aged cedar, and whirled them aloft to fall with 
destruction upon the plain below. At once this terrible 
war of the elements descended battling to the valley 
from the mountain-peak, when from the high rock was 
seen the fierce storm beneath. The electric flaid at- 
tracted from cloud to cloud, appeared like fabled fiery 
serpents contending for the masterdom. The reverber- 
ating thunder, echoing fmm mountain to mountain, and 
the furious winds, bursting the clouds asunder, as if to 
force the concealed lightning from its electric battery — 



A MOUNTAIN STOEM AND RAINBOW. 189 

all combined, produced a scene of terror and grandeur 
almost too sublinje for human words to delineate. 

While the brain was whirling to and fro, contem- 
plating this elemental war and the majesty of Nature, 
the clear blue firmament above and the black, raging 
storm beneath, suddenly was created the sign of peace, 
the covenant between the Almighty and mankind, and 
it was seen in its double form in dazzling prismatic col- 
ors, a vast arch, apparently forty miles in diameter, 
over the dreadful gulf of desolation ! Upon that heavenly 
arch of hope, fashioned by the Architect of the uni- 
verse, angels might have stood, and trumpet-tongued, 
have called upon man to look ''from Nature up to Na- 
ture's God 1" That Avondrous sight would have restored 
the maniac atheist to his childhood's sanity and inno- 
cei]ce, when first he heard the voice of prayer from his 
mother's lips; it would have taught him to renounce his 
hell-born creed and exclaim, with mind and heart re- 
generated, " There is a God ! " In a brief space of time 
Nature doffed her dark and stormy mantle and ap- 
peared arrayed in her brightest robes of serenity, for 
the entire valley was covered with bright golden clouds, 
which gradually arose, as drapery drawn up by angelic 
hands from the Arch of Hope, discovering, as at sun- 
rise, the cultivated plains beneath, yet in more varied 
and brilliant colors. The present world and the future 
were portrayed in these magnificent pictures from the 
hand of Nature. 



190 THE CROWN OF YOUTH. 



THE CEOWN OF YOUTH. 

By Professor Henry Kiddle. 

Youth is tlie period for golden aspirations. The 
future, then, is a land of bright promise, ^vith golden 
fields of effort and enterprise, and triumphs of genius, 
winning rapturous applause from admiring crowds. 
Ambition stands with beckoning hand, and points to 
the hill of Fame in the distance, clothed with splendor, 
and surmounted with a castle magnificent in its propor- 
tions and in the beauty of its architectural symmetry. 
Onward speeds the youth, Lis eye fixed upon the daz- 
zling heights, but too often is found dashed to pieces 
at the foot of some awful precipice, seen, alas! too 
late. 

Life is, in fact, just as beautiful — ^just as full of pre- 
cious prizes, with jnst as bright and glorious mansions 
on the Delectable Mountains, in the distance, as ever 
dazzled the eyes of youth in ambition's brightest 

dreams. 

'^ Life is real — life is earnest, 

And the grave is not its goal. 

Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 

"Was not spoken of the soul,'' 

O, youth ! believe those glorious words of one of the 
sweetest and most spiritual of poets; for they but echo 
the words of inspiration coming to mortals from the 
depths of ages, and enshrined in the sacred pages of 
Holy Scripture. 

Go on the mission which your Divine Saviour has 
pointed out to you. Wherever you are, and luliatever 
you are — whether your sphere of action be low or ex- 
alted — let it be ever your ambition to be, indeed, true 



THE CROWN OF YOUTH. 191 

men or tnie icomen — doiug the work upon wliicli the 
angels will gaze with smiles of rapture, and which your 
heavenly Father shall reward, when He greets you with 
the approving words: "Well done, good, and faithful 
servant!" Be not thou, O! youth, like him who buried 
his talent in the earth, but respond to the exhortation: 

** Let us then be up and doing, 
"With a heart for any fate; 
Still achieving, still pursuing — 
Learn to labor and to wait." 

Let thine eyes never lose sight of the beacon of thy 
soul's immortality, never forgetting that, when "our 
earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved, we have a 
building of God, a house not made w^ith hands, eternal 
in the heavens." Faith in this glorious truth will 
awaken you to the noblest efforts, will sweeten all the 
trials of life, and will lead you, at the end, to that re- 
gion of eternal happiness in which you shall truly feel 
that the love of your Creator "passeth all understand- 
ing." 

"Trust in the Lord wdth all thy heart, and lean not 
unto thine own understanding; in all thy ways acknowl- 
edge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." 

These thoughts are the jewels which, when set in 
your lives, will form a glorious crown, more glittering 
than the most resplendent of gems, and as enduring as 
the flowers that bloom in the amaranthine bowers of 
Paradise. 



192 THREE CHRISTMASES A YEAR. 

THEEE CHKISTMASES A TEAE. 

By Ebenezer Kijowlton. 

"Wouldn't that be jollj, tbougli? Jast think of it! 
Three Christmases in one 3"ear ! Yes, and all of them 
in one week, too! Why, Old Santa Claus and Kriss 
Kriugle would fairly go crazy trying to remember all 
the gifts, and I'm afraid they'd drive their poor rein- 
deer to death in the vain attempt to deliver them all on 
time. And then, you know, the Society for the Pre- 
vention of Cruelty to Animals would have to take the 
reindeer in hand, and if they did that, poor Kriss and 
old Santa might not get clear in time to attend to the 
Christmas gifts for next year, and that would become 
a case of cruelty to children. 

Besides that, where would the fathers and mothers, 
the uncles and aunties, the grandpas and grandmas, the 
brothers and sisters and cousins, find the money to pay 
for all the presents ? Wliy, even now, with only one 
Christmas a year, some of them have to begin right 
after the Fourth of July and save all their spare gold, 
and silver, and nickels, and greenbacks, so as to be 
ready for the Christmas presents, and then, after all, 
they can't give as many beautiful gifts as their loving 
hearts would like to give. And if it's as bad as that 
with only one Christmas a year, what would become of 
us if we had three?'' I'm afraid some of our good peo- 
ple would have to ask Congress to make a law that 
Christmas should come only once in three years. And 
that would make trouble for the almanac people, and 
the church people, and all the young folks wouldn't 
like it, and I'm sure I don't know how in the world we 
could help having trouble all round. 

You think there's no danger? You don't believe 



THREE CHRISTMASES A YEAR. 19 



o 



three Cliristmases could come in one year? And all in 
the same week? Yes, and on three successive days, 
one right, after the other ? You Icnoiu they couldn't do 
it anyway ? Well, now, you wait a bit, if you please. 
There are a great many things in this world that you 
don't know yet, and this may be one of them. 

But first, let us get acquainted with each other, and 
then, perhaps, the boys will tell you all about it them- 
selves. The2/ didn't believe it either, once, any more 
than you do now, but they found out that it could be 
true, and really is true, after a fashion, and they found 
ifc out so completely and so pleasantly that it made 
them all very happy at the time, and has made them 
almost as happy ever since, every time they have 
thought of it, or tried to tell of it. 

So let me introduce Hal, Guy, and Fred. Their other 
name is Kent, and they live right here in San Fran- 
cisco; away up on one of the slopes of the Clay-streefc 
hill, within sight and sound of the street cars that run, 
like so many idle men and women, without any visible 
means of support. 

They are "Pioneer boys," too, for they are among 
the first boys born in the State. Their father was a 
real pioneer of the earliest kind. He was with Com- 
modore Sloat when he raised the first Stars and Stripes 
that ever waved in California, at Monterey, on July 7, 
1846, one day before Commodore Montgomery raised 
the first American flag on what is now Portsmouth 
square, here in our own city. And the boys say that if 
their father is a pioneer man, his sons must be pioneer 
hoys — and I don't see how we can get round it, either, 
do you? 

Their mother is just the nicest, widest-awake, clear- 
est-headed, and most loving-hearted little woman in the 
13 



194 THREE CHRISTMASES A YEAE. 

whole citj. Afc least the boys all say so; and if you 
and I don't think so, we won't let the boys know it, 
just yet, anyway, because if we did, they might not tell 
us all we want them to. I can't draw lier picture for 
you, for she is too good and too pretty to be put into 
words. So I don't think the boys are far wrong in 
their opinion of her, after all. It would be a blessed 
thing if all the boys in the world could think so of their 
mothers, at least until they grow to be great six-foot 
boys not less than twenty-five years old. 

Their father is one of the tallest, largest, finest- 
looking of men, such as you may see on Montgomery 
street, or around the Merchants' Exchange, on almost 
any afternoon, when our leading merchants are thickest 
and busiest. I don't dare tell you exactly how he looks 
for fear you'll find him out, and he won't thank me for 
putting you all on track of him, staring after him, and 
pointing at him on the streets. 

But I'll try some little pen-pictures of the boys for 
you, that is, if they'll keep still long enough, for they 
are all so full of life, and drive, and dash, and frisk, 
that it's hard to keep them in one place long at a time. 

First, then, for Hal. He's the oldest, the largest, 
and decidedly the handsomest — at least lie thinks so, 
and a very nice young lady whom I might name, thinks 
so, too. Hal is nearly twenty; straight as an Indian — 
that is, as an Indian used to be; I mean before the 
white man's whisky had taken so much of the straight- 
ness and the strength out of him, — and the top of his 
head is almost level with his father's. Dark hazel eyes, 
clear and deep brown face — not tanned, but the natural 
brown that will neither wash out nor wash off. He 
would be a "regular double brunette," Guy says, if he 
were a girl; a good, large nose, curved a little, like an 



THREE CHEISTMASES A YEAR. 195 

eagle's, lie says himself; or a regular liawk-bill, Fred 
calls it when he loses liis own knife, and Hal won't 
lend liim his. But his hair, that's what Hal's proudest 
of, and well he may be, for it's the heaviest tangle of 
solid black curls that ever packed themselves around 
one roguish youngster's mischievous pate. Then Hal 
has as broad a pair of good, square shoulders, as finely 
knit a frame, and limbs as well rounded and well-set as 
any lad of his years ever brought out of the Olympic 
Club. 

He is in the Junior Class of the State University at 
Berkeley; not the number one student in book learning, 
but easily the leader of them all in health and strength 
of body, quickness, clearness and readiness of mind, 
endless good-temper, practical knowledge of men and 
things, and general sound judgment. 

President Le Conte says he wishes more young men 
came to him with such splendid health of body and 
mind, such quickness in grasping and using new facts, 
such knowledge of men as well as of books, and such 
admirable balance and self-control, as he finds in Hal 
Kent. And he might have more such lads if their 
fathers would take as much pains to talk with them, 
explain to them, question them, take them about with 
them, and even send them abroad, as Mr. Kent has 
taken with Hal. A little behind in the dull and dry minu- 
tiae of mere school-book knowledge, he may be; but vastly 
ahead in many other attainments, so much so, in fact, 
that he is fast becoming the acknowledged leader, not 
only of his own class, but of the whole University. 

Next, Oxxj. He is as plump as a partridge, and as 
full of mischief as of plumpness. Eyes that fairly 
sparkle with the fun that is packed away behind them 
and running out through them! When they are half 



196 THREE CHEISTMASES A YEAR. 

shut you can see a sunny smile slyly snuggling in either 
corner of each merry eye, and when he opens them 
wide you can almost hear the good, round double laugh 
that fairly tills them both. "When he gets fairly at it, 
you need not go to the minstrels for funny songs, jokes 
or acting. Indeed, on those pleasant, social evenings 
when Guy is keeping the family and the visiting neigh- 
bors in an almost constant laugh, his father sometimes 
says he don't know but the city authorities will have 
to arrest him yet for keeping a place of public amuse- 
ment without any license. * ' Such cuttings-up as that boy 
does go into!" his mother says, and yet she cannot keep 
her face straight long enough to scold him if she would, 
for, no matter how seriously she may begin, one bright 
flash of his merry eyes and one queer twist of his comi- 
cal mouth, and the dear little mother goes off into a 
rippling laugh every bit as clear and ringing as his own. 
In fact it is very easy to see where Guy got his fun ; at 
any rate, Guy says himself, with a sly glance at his 
mother, that he came honestly enough by it, and he 
loves the darling little woman all the more because she 
gave it to him in the first place, and always helps him 
along in it whenever she gets a chance. 

Guy has a fair, Saxon complexion, blue eyes, and ahead 
of light brown, curly hair, that curls so tight that the 
young rogue says he often has hard work to get his eyes 
shut when he wants to go to sleep. And though he is so 
plump, his eye is as quick, his hand as skillful, and his 
foot as nimble as those of any boy in the famous base- 
ball club of which he is captain. Folks say he takes 
after his grandfather. Guy says he hasn't seen the good 
old gentleman for so long that he hardly knows whether 
he takes after him or not, but he thinks he should take 
after him pretty lively if he could only catch one square 



THREE CHRISTMASES A YEAR. 197 

sight of him, especially about Christmas time. Mr. 
Mann, his former teacher at the Boys' High School, 
tells him that 's hardly respectful to the old gentle- 
man, but Guy says that, *' Grandfather knows what he 
means." 

Last of all, Fred. And best of all, too, almost any- 
body would say, especially if that anybody were a nice, 
appreciative little girl. Such a curly-pated, laughing- 
faced, snappy-eyed, merry-tempered little rogue, one 
could hardly find twice in a thousand miles. Nor a 
more lovable one, either. Babies stretch out their tiny 
hands to go to him, or crow to get hold of him. Kitties 
and puppies run after him and frisk about him as if 
they knew he has as much frisk in him as the funniest 
of them. Hopping, skipping, running, climbing and 
jumping all day he is, but seldom falling, for lie seems 
to have learned of the kitties themselves how to always 
come down on his feet. And such pranks as he does 
play ! But he never vexes anybody nor torments any- 
thing, for he is so tender-hearted, as well as happy- 
tempered himself that he can't bear to see anybody 
else troubled at all, or any animal tormented even for a 
minute. So the boys and the girls, and the men and 
women take to him and love him almost as much as the 
babies and kitties do. 

He is ten years old, and about as tall as a broom. 
The top of his curly head comes nearly up to his mother's 
shoulder, so that when any one asks him how tall he is, 
he always says, " Just up to my little mother's heart," 
and the dear little mother sometimes almost wishes he 
could never grow above it. 

Their home, as already mentioned, is well up the 
southerly slope of the Clay street hill, away above the 
noise and dust of the city, where the blessed sunshine 



198 THllEE CHRISTMASES A YEAR. 

strikes first in the morning and lingers latest in the 
afternoon. Guy says lie seldom climbs the hill without 
thinking, as he plants each footstep an inch or two higher 
than the last, of the old motto-word, "Excelsior," of 
which his teacher reminds his boys so often. 

And such a glorious view as they have from all their 
windows, especially on the east and. south! Why, you 
can hardly find the like of it from any house of any city 
in the world. Mr. Kent believes that all the inner ar- 
rangements of the house, — its furniture, its surround- 
ings, and especially the view from the windows, all help 
to educate the home circle. And that was one reason 
why he set his house so high. The view is best of all 
in the early morning, just before sunrise, when the 
broad bay lies as smooth and bright as one of heaven's 
own mirrors, and the hill-tops of Berkeley and Oakland 
lift their gray and blue and pinkish ridges sharply up 
against the first faint blushes of the dawn along the 
eastern sky. That 's the time the boys see most of it, 
for they all love to get up early, as father does. He 
says his early rising has made his fortune, and, if early 
rising can do it, the boys bid fair to be even richer 
than their father. They are up now, although it is only 
&ve o'clock on Christmas morning, and the sun is yet so 
far below the darkling hills that even the sharp eyes of 
the eager lads can't catch the first glimpse of the coming 
Christmas which has already dawned so merrily upon 
their wide-awake cousins in Philadelphia, New York 
and Boston, and "away down East." So they grow im- 
patient, and begin to rally the day on its laziness. Hal 
says he don't think the young Christmas is as smart as 
the young Christians, for they were up and dressed long 
ago, while the day hasn't opened his eyes yet. 

Guy wishes he just had a good hold of the big crank 



THREE CHRISTMASES A YEAR. 199 

that turDS the old world; if he wouldn't give it one jerk 
that would just hurry up old Santa Claus, he 'd just 
know the reason, that's all. 

Then Fred speaks. He's the little one; the smallest 
of all. He says he "don't wonder Christmas takes such 
a long time to get here, 'cause he's got such a long way 
to come and such big lots of presents to lug.'' Fred 
has the kindest heart in the house. He never blames 
anybody, but always tries to find some excuse for them, 
no matter how bad they may seem. So everybody 
loves him. They can't help it. You couldn't help it 
either, if you could just look into his eyes this very 
minute and see Avhat a precious pair of darling little 
twinklers they are. Just look at him now! Kneeling 
on a hassock at the east window of his own room, flat- 
tening his fat nose against the cold pane until one 
chubby cheek touches the glass on either side, while 
down in front of his red lips the cool glass grows dewy 
with his moist breathings as they follow one another so 
fast from his lively little lungs. But the glass stays all 
clear yet up in front of his eyes, and they twinkle and 
snap away behind it as if blinking and winking at Santa 
Claus himself. He little suspects that old Santa has 
already come and gone while he was soundly sleeping, 
and has packed both of his biggest stockings so full that 
the presents have actually ruu over and dropped into 
both his long-legged boots, and they were the nicest 
things, too, that ever slipped into those same boots, 
except his own fat little feet. Now he thinks of mother; 
wonders if she's awake yet; jumps up qaickly; tip-toes 
softly across the floor; turns the door-knob as silently 
as an old burglar, and creeps slyly along the hall till he 
reaches mother's door. There he stops a minute and 
" barks," as he says, to see if anybody is stirring yet. 



200 THREE CHRISTMASES A YEAR. 

He can't hear a sound, not even tlie ghost of a snore, so 
he works away at the knob till he turns it softly back 
without a bit of noise; then, all on a sudden, he pushes 
it swiftly open and bursts in upon his mother's sleep 
with a "Wish you merry Christmas, mother," so loud 
and hearty that his mother starts, springs up in bed, 
rubs her eyes wide open with both hands, then stretches 
them out in hearty welcome as he scrambles up the bed- 
side to be fondly folded in her loving arms. Then he 
rushes back to the boys' room, only to find that the 
drowsy fellows have dozed off to sleep again so soundly 
that Santa Claus might have driven his old sleigh, or 
cart, or velocipede, or omnibus, or whatever else he 
travels in, right over their very noses and they would 
hardly have waked to see what was the matter. Then 
he had some more fun. He just clapped his mouth 
down close to their ears and shouted like a young fire- 
man, " Wish you merry Christmas !" so loud that they 
started up quicker then mother had done, and paid him 
for his mischief by banging him with pillows till he was 
glad to rush back to mother's room, without stopping to 
see whether Santa Claus had filled his brothers' stock- 
ings or not. 

Then Guy and Hal turned to each other with a *' Wish 
you merry Christmas, old fellow?" and they both spoke 
it so exactly at the same time that they had to stop and 
''wish," as the girls say we always must do when two 
people happen to say the same thing at the same time. 
As soon as they both got their breath, after their good, 
hearty, brotherly laugh, they started together for father's 
and mother's room, ''to get the wish on to them." 
But they didn't get along quite so well as Fred had, for 
they were larger and heavier, and more in a hurry, so 
that, when they had got the door open but a little way 



THEEE CHEISTMASES A YEAR. 201 

and were just drawing in good, long, deep breaths 
that tliey might wish father and mother a real, rousing, 
riDgiug "Merry Christmas," the door suddenly flew 
wide open, aud there stood father and mother all up 
and dressed, and rattling off *' Wish you merry Christ- 
mas, my dear boys !" so loud and fast upon them, that, 
as Guy afterward said, they "couldn't hear themselves 
think." So the old folks got ahead of the young ones 
that time, and laughed so long and loud that if jolly old 
Santa Claus hadn't been so busy filling a lot of other 
folks' stockings, he would surely have come hurrying 
back to see what the matter was. 

Pretty soon they all finished dressing and came down 
stairs, where they found a nice warm breakfast all ready 
and waiting, for it seems that the boys had made such 
a racket that it waked Bridget, and when she heard the 
"Merry Christmases" ringing round up chamber, she 
hurried to see whether her big stockings had any pres- 
ents in them, and when she found them fairly filled 
with all sorts of good things, from a ten-dollar gold 
piece from Mr. Kent to a big paper of assorted candies 
from Master Fred, she felt so thankful to them all that 
she flew round as lively as such a stout creature could, 
and got jast the nicest breakfast that she knew how to 
get for the dear, good family that had so kindly remem- 
bered the servant. 

After they were all seatad, and had gratefully united 
in their father's heart}^ thanks to Him whose great gift 
made the blessed Christmas, the boys began to ask one 
another if they remembered what a funny time they 
had ten Christmases ago, trying to settle which day 
really was Christmas; how Guy made out that Christ- 
mas came the day before mother said it did; and Hal 
said that Guy and his mother were both wrong, for 



202 THREE CHRISTMASES A YEAE. 

Christmas would'nt really come until the day after both 
their Christmases ? They did have a funny time over 
it, sure enough, and it came about in this way: 

Gay was a great favorite with Captain Eldridge, the 
agent of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's great 
steamships that have been running so long between 
New York and San Francisco, and that began to run to 
China and Japan in January, 1867. He used to run 
down to the captain's office very often, and go with him 
to see the great wharves and docks from which the grand 
old steamships sail. He went down that morning when 
the '* Colorado" sailed on her first trip, and cheered as 
loud as anv of the thousands of older ones that thronf^red 
the neighboring roofs and hill slopes when her paddle- 
wheels began to turn. He Avent home so excited that 
he couldn't rest until he had written out his thoughts 
about it; and the longer he thought and the more he 
wrote about it, the better he liked the idea of using 
what he had written for an original declamation when 
his turn came next. And he did it; so that on the first 
Friday of the new Term, when it came his turn, he 
walked quietly to the platform, made his best bow to 
Mr. Bradley and the school — Mr. Bradley was then 
principal, you remember — and gave them this original 
declamation : 

The Sailing of the "Colorado." — New Year's Day, 1867. 

It is well-nigh done! The last long link of the earth- 
surrounding chain which shall bind all the lands under 
man's subjection, is already forged. Even while we speak, 
the swiftly-turning paddles of the noble " Colorado " are 
hourly stretching westward the massive chain of commerce 
and civilization which shall speedily complete the circuit of 
the earth, and unite two worlds. Every setting sun sees 
her farther toward the end of the grandest voyage ship ever 



THREE CHRISTMASES A YEAR. 203 

sailed. Steadily above her westward way the Star of Em- 
pire shines to guide and cheer. Commerce and civilization, 
through all the centuries, have struggled toward this crown- 
ing day. They have conquered the new world, and now 
embark together to complete their conquest of the old. 

The boys and girls who crowded amoug the thronging 
thousands that covered the wharves and roofs and hill- 
slopes near the " Colorado's " ]3ier last New Year's day, 
could not begin to realize the greatness of the sight they 
saw. Exactly on the stroke of noon began the revolution 
of those giant wheels whose myriad turnings are this day 
completing the commercial circuit of the globe. 

Let them remember it well, for the longest life among 
them will behold few spectacles more worthy human mem- 
ory. From between the pillars of the Golden Gate, the 
staunch, grand ship shot forth, like some gigantic shuttle, 
weaving the woof of history across the long-drawn warp of 
commerce. Long ages had waited that bright morn. Amer- 
ica stretching forth to China. The Occident reaching out 
its other hand to meet and clasp the Orient's waiting palm, 
and with its strong, fraternal grasp to bind the world in 
one vast brotherhood. The western and the eastern worlds 
uniting across the widest and the grandest of earth's oceans. 
The deep Pacific, long their barrier, has become at length 
their bond. Heaven smile upon the noble ship. God speed 
the " Colorado." 

Guy grew very enthusiastic over his declamation. He 
really spoke as if his heart were in it, and the boys 
cheered him to his heart's content as he stepped down 
from the platform, flushed with excitement and satis- 
faction. Even Mr. Bradley could not forbear to smile 
upon him and sincerely commend his performance as 
really excellent for a High School senior. 

When Captain Eldridge heard of it, he wanted Guy 



204 THREE CHBISTMASES A YEAR. 

to recite it to him. Guy did so, and the captain en- 
joyed it so much that he applauded heartily at its close, 
clapped Guy upon the shoulder, and told him that he 
should deliver that very declamation in the cabin of the 
''Colorado" herself, half-way across the Pacific Ocean, 
on her very next trip. Guy was too much delighted to 
speak, for a moment, but as soon as he recovered the 
use of his tongue, he warmly thanked the Captain, 
and told him, emphatically, that nothing on earth could 
suit him better, if father and mother were willing. 

They very readily consented, when they learned that 
the captain of the ship would be glad to have Guy's 
company, and especially when they found tbat one of 
Mr. Kent's merchant friends was to sail at the same 
time on a trip round the world, and would take Guy 
with him with the greatest pleasure. 

So Guy went. And of all his leave-takings, of his 
getting settled in his state-room, of steaming outward 
through the Golden Gate, of his sea-sickness, and of 
his finally "getting his sea legs on," Ave have no time 
to tell in so short a story. It was about " dropping a 
day" when crossing the one hundred and eightieth me- 
ridian that he got most puzzled. The captain kindly 
explained how one going west gains time, or finds his 
watch going faster and faster; and one going east as 
constantly loses time, or finds his watch all the while 
slower and slower. Guy at last caught the idea so 
clearly that he wrote in his diary something like this : 

Wednesday, April 17, 1867. — This is the first time in 
my life that I ever heard anybody call a day the same day 
of the month as the day before. Yesterday was Tuesday, 
April 16, and tbat was all right; but the Captain says that 
this day, Wednesday, is April 16, too, and that seems all 
wrong. He explains it in this way: — The earth rotates 



THREE CHRISTMASES A YEAR. 205 

from west to east, so that any place sees tlie sun before, 
that is, earlier than any place west of it. When any place 
begins to see the sun, the sun rises at that place, and when 
the sun rises at any place, the day begins at that place. 
And the earlier the day begins anywhere, the sooner the 
noon comes there, and the sooner the sun sets there. So 
that at any instant of lime, the jolace which had its sunrise 
earlier, that is, the place whose day was born first will be 
farther on in its life, that is, will be older — ^in other words, 
will have a later hour at the same instant than any 
place west of it. Just as the earlier a boy was born, 
the older he is at any given time. For example: Hal 
was born in 1850; three years earlier than I; so he is now 
three years older than I. So if the day is born — that is, 
if the sun rises — an hour earlier than in another place, 
the day must be an hour older; that is, the time of day 
an hour later ^ all through the day in the first place than 
in the second. Its noon, its sunset, and its midnight would 
come an hour earlier, and the next day must begin an hour 
hf'fwe it begins in the other place. In this way, when the 
first place has half-past eleven at night, on the sixteenth of 
April, the second place has half-jDast twelve the next morn- 
ing, April 17. That is, two places which have only one 
hour's difference of time may have two difi'erent da^'s at the 
same instant. And these two days may belong to two 
weeks, these two weeks to two months, these two months 
to two years, and these two years to two centuries, even." 

One illustration the captain used, helped him a great 
deal. The captain said: 

'* Guy, suppose we had an inclosed tract of ground 
perfectly round, Avitli just three hundred and sixty posts 
set in the fence. Now if any boy wanted to run round 
the tract, don't you see that when he got round opposite 
the same post he started from, it would make just one 



206 THREE CHRISTMASES A YEAE. 

rouDcl for him, no matter wbicli post lie began at, and 
the instant he ran by that post be would begin his sec- 
ond round ? Do you see ? '' 

Guy did see that. 

" Well," continued the captain, *' all you need do is 
to think of the earth as the tract, and, in place of 
the posts, think of the meridians, and, instead of the 
boy, think of the sun, running around, or seeming to 
run around the earth, and then remember that the day 
begins at any place the instant the sun gets exactly 
over, off against, or opposite the meridian of that place, 
and when the sun gets round to that meridian again, 
that day ends and the next one begins, exactly as the 
boy's bout or circuit would end and the next one begin, 
the instant he came round opposite the post at which 
he began it." 

''Yes," Guy said, '*I do see that, and I think I can 
remember it, too." 

Do you see it, and do you think ?/o?^ can remember it? 

Bat he was a queer fellow, after all, for on referring 
to his diary we find this additional entry : 

" But I don't believe in calling any day the same day of 
the month as we called the day before. It don't seem 
right. They may do it on the ship's books if they want to, 
but I won't do it in my diary. Every time the sun rises I'm 
going to call it a new day, and count it one day later in the 
month than I did the day before." 

And he was as good as his word. He kept on in his 
own way of reckoning till he finished his trip round the 
world and got back home again. When he reached 
homo and how his reckoning came out we shall see 
pretty soon. 

Meanwhile, and wholly unexpectedly, it happened 
that Hal had the opportunity of making the "grand 



THREE CHEISTMASES A YEAR. 207 

round," too, only lie went round the other way. Hal 
had a great idea of building; always planning and cal- 
culating how to construct houses, bridges, ships — in 
fact, anything that could be built of wood or iron, he 
loved to study into and find out. And, like all lads of 
that turn of mind, he had a perfect passion for big 
ships, and, especially, for great steamships. So he 
spent the greater part of his Saturdays down around the 
piers, and on board the grand steamships, where he 
studied them so closely and took such an evident inter- 
est in everything that Captain Cox, who was captain of 
everything down in that vicinity, gradually took as great 
a liking for Hal as Hal had for the ships. So. it hap- 
pened that, only three months after Guy had sailed, 
Captain Cox persuaded one of the Company's captains 
who was going to New York to bring out one of their new 
steamships by the way of Cape of Good Hope, to take 
Hal along with him. As Guy had already gone and Mr. 
Kent wished to take his family East that summer, he 
said he would take Hal along with him to New York, 
and while there would decide the matter finally. Long 
before they reached New York, Mr. Kent himself had 
taken so great a liking to the captain that he not only 
consented to let Hal go on with him, but said he would 
gladly go himself and take the whole family along, if he 
had time. So it came to pass that Hal and Guy were 
steaming round the world in opposite directions at the 
same time. 

Hal kept his regular journal or diary, as well as Guy, 
for their father has always insisted on all his children's 
doing that as soon as they knew how to write. When 
Hal's ship got round into the Pacific, and reached the 
same meridian where Guy's ship had " doubled a day," 
as he said, Hal's captain astonished him quite as much 



208 THREE CHRISTMASES A YEAR. 

by " droppiDg a day." Hal knew a little about longi- 
tude and time, but not enough to fully understand the 
whys and wherefores oi the operation, even after all the 
captain's kindest efforts to explain. He said he couldn't 
see what the poor day had done that it couldn't have a 
fair show» anyway, and he thought it the coolest case of 
'* killing time" that he ever saw. So he stuck to his 
own counting, or reckoning, still more stoutly than Guy 
had, if possible, until he too had gone quite round the 
world and had got back to San Francisco. Neither of 
them traveled steadily, but when he reached some city 
where he wished to stay and look about a while, he did 
it. Thus it happened that Hal, who made the last part 
of his homeward journey by way of the Isthmus, steam- 
ing along up the California coast, was just off Santa 
Cruz when Guy's ship, coming across from China and 
Japan, was just passing the Farallones. So, by the 
merest chance in the world, they reached home within 
five hours of each other, on the day before Christmas. 
A.nd then came the mix, or the " mix-understanding," 
as Fred Avould call it. He knew it Avas December twen- 
ty-fourth, and when his brothers brought out. their 
diaries to prove him wrong, he ran and got the almanac, 
and the calendar, and the ** Morning Call," and the 
"Alta" for that morning, and showed Guy and Hal that 
all these standard authorities agreed that the day was 
December twenty-fourth. Then he showed them the 
advertisements of the Christmas-eve festivals and all the 
good things in which San Francisco so much abounds, 
and which make her young folks and old folks so merry 
and happy during the holidaj^ season. And he clinched 
his whole argument by "leaving it to mother," who, of 
course, said that Fred was quite right, and that the 
next day luould be Christmas, sure. 



THREE CHEISTMASES A TEAR. 200 

Guy would have it tLat ''to-day" was Cliristmas, and 
said lie could prove it by bis diary and by the ship's 
records, and by the testimony of every passenger that 
came by his ship. Hal was equally sure that Christ- 
mas would not and could not come till "day after to- 
morrow," and was positive that he could bring as many 
proofs that he was right as (ruy could to prove his side 
of the stor3^ But Fred had father and mother and, in 
fact, the whole city on his side, so the other boys very 
pleasantly agreed that it would be of no use for each of 
them to have an independent Christmas on his own ac- 
count, and that when one is in Bome, one would better 
do as the Romans do. 

The boys laughed heartily as they talked over their 
three Christmases, that one had had, that another was 
having, and the third was going to have, until Fred 
looked up with one of his bright flashes and said that, 
after all, they were doing a still more wonderful thing, 
for they were actually having five Christmases all the 
same day. The other boys burst out laughing at this, 
until Fred proved what he said, or at least he said he 
did, by asking Guy and Hal if every one at the table 
was not having his own Christmas in his own way, and 
so they were really having as many Christmases as 
there were folks at the table, — one for father, one for 
mother, one for Guy, one for Hal and one for Fred. 
Guy fairly shouted at that, and told Fred that if he was 
going to reckon in that way, giving a separate Christ- 
mas to every man, woman and child in the United 
States, he'd have to have more than forty-five million 
Christmases all in the same day, and that would be vastly 
more wonderful and a great sight jollier than having 
three different Christmas-days all in the same year. 
Fred said he didn't care, Christmas was such a blessed 

14 



210 THREE CHRISTMASES A YEAR. 

good day that the more tv© had the better, so he only 
snapped his black eyes all' the harder and said that he 
wouldn't give it np any wa^^ And I really don't know 
whether he's got that Christmas matter fairly into his 
curly pate, yet. 

What do you think about it ? Before they rose from 
the table, Mr. Kent said that if one could only sail fast 
enough to keep right under the sun, that is, to keep the 
sun right overhead all day, of course the sun could 
never seem to rise or set, so that the same day would 
last forever. Guy instantly asked his father if that was 
what the Bible means when it says " a thousand years 
are as one day." Mr. Kent said that was too grand 
and deep a subject for him to try and explain then, but 
if we keep the spirit of Him whose birthday makes the 
Christmas, we shall know all about it by and by. 



* * * In answer to your request, I send the following, which I 
read recently in a paper, and which lias been running in my head ever 
since. Respectfully yours, 

Schuyler Colfax. 

* ' He liveth long 

Who liveth well; 
All other life 

Is brief and vain." 

Also, this sentiment, written three hundred years ago, which embodies 
the same idea: 

*' Count that da}'- lost, whose low-descending sun 
Views from thy hand no generous action done.'' 



man's destiny. 211 



MAN'S DESTINY. 

By Rev. Brother Justin'. 



Man's destiny is the possession and enjoyment of the 
Infinite, — of God. The grandeur, harmony and order 
of the universe proclaim this truth. The aspirations, 
hopes and affections of the human heart declare it. 
Nature and art point to God as the beginning and end 
of all things. The beauty and symmetry of the body; 
its wondrous organism, its mysterious connection with 
the soul, its life and death, — all give hopes of a future 
life. If we analyze the human mind, its flights of fancy, 
the height and depth and length and breadth of thought; 
its rapidity, its distinctness, its universality and its 
truth, we must admit its object can be nothing short of 
the infinite. It looks up into the highest heaven and 
down to the lowest depths, and yet is not satisfied. The 
majesty and grandeur of its conceptions, as seen in the 
works of science and art, proclaim knowledge and power 
and order, and ceaseless yearning after something better 
than earth can give. Where is this something to be 
found? At home, in our heavenly Father's house. 

The history of time and the traditions of all peoples 
show unity of belief in the existence of God and man's 
destiny. There are a few, however, who not only deny 
that man's destiny is to possess and enjoy God, but 
they deny the very existence of God. They may be 
classed as rationalistic and materialistic philosophers. 
They embrace the German, French and Euglish schools. 
The rationalistic have some of the fervid imagination 
and dreamy mysticism of the Nyaya or Hindoo philoso- 
phy. The materialists say they see in matter the power 
and potency of all things. The most conservative, the 



212 man's destiny. 

evolutionists, relegate tlie existence of a Supreme Being 
and man's destiny to the regions of the unknowable. 

Consciously or unconsciously, the principles involved 
in evolution, and especially in the theory of progress, 
underlie all the infidel speculations of the age, and re- 
sult in one or other of the forms of Pantheism. Evolu- 
tion is the theory that affirms the unity of substance 
and its self-evolution into the universe, under the 
necessary conditions, attributes, properties or laws of 
its own being. This is the most general view, abstract- 
ing what may be said of the nature of substance, 
the manner of its evolution and the reality underlying 
the cosmical phenomena. By this theory there is but 
one being; consequently, Man, the animal, vegetable 
and all other forms of being are but modifications of 
this one. 

The theory of progress holds that beings naturally 
develop from the lesser to the greater, from the imper- 
fect to the perfect, by their own intrinsic powers, and 
without other influence than that furnished by Nature. 
This is Darwinism, which is evolution of the highest 
from the lowest. Mr. Darwin, in his '^Origin of 
Species," and *' Descent of Man," brings forward a 
multiplicity of very interesting facts which show his in- 
dustry as a one-sided observer; but not one does he 
bring forth that is legitimately even a probable argu- 
ment of his theory. Such writers, it is true, do not 
claim certainty. They say they are only theorists. 
Now, two things are necessary that a theory may be- 
come a certainty : First — It must explain satisfactorily 
every possible fact that can legitimately come under it; 
and, second, it must prove that no other supposition 
can account for the fact or facts in question. The the- 
orists admit there are things they do not know; then 



man's destiny. 213 

tliey cannot give llie required proof, the conditions to 
make a theory a certainty are not present, therefore 
there is in their case no true science, no certainty. 
But, say the scientists, we will one day attain certainty. 
Let us see. 

According to the teachings of Pantheistic scien- 
tists, principles are unknowable; they hold the doc- 
trine of the relativity of knowledge. They deny the 
principle of cause and effect. This being their position, 
they cannot give absolute proof of anything they assert. 
It is an axiom that nothing cannot produce something. 
Therefore, there cannot be in the effect what is not in 
the cause, either actually or virtually; but the effect, 
Man, clearly transcends the cause, whether the monkey 
or other inferior animals, assigned by the Pantheists. 
If, for the sake of argument, we admit with Huxley 
that all the powers of man and the animals are virtually 
in the germ, the one or many primordial germs, and 
that they are developed successively by the aid of ex- 
ternal physical causes, as trees from seeds, even this 
supposition will not hold. Given the primordial germs, 
or any subsequent organism, say a cat, how determine 
that it contains the germ of man's powers? All inves- 
tigation and analysis must be on dead matter, hence the 
induction, however validly drawn, must be on dead 
matter, and apply only to dead matter. There may be, 
therefore, in tlie vital or supercosmical order, some- 
thing which destroys the application of the induction to 
vital germs. Take all the inductions of which the Pan- 
theists speak, either the conclusions are legitimately 
drawn or they are not. If they are not, there is no 
proof, and there the matter rests; if they are, they fol- 
low in the order and to the extent of the facts. But as 
we have seen, the Pantheists admit there may bo an 



214 man's destiny. 

order of facts distinct from the cosmical or visible facts; 
they therefore can never have certainty. The advocates 
of infidelity, in all their theories on the origin of things, 
are obliged to postulate some reality underlying the 
cosmical phenomena, and they aflSrm that this thing is 
uncreated. It follows that this reality must be eternal; 
if eternal, it must be absolutel}^ unconditioned in its 
essence and state of being, for there is no condition 
prior to it, therefore nothing to condition it. If abso- 
lutely unconditioned, it must be immutable, for no 
change can take place unless it takes place under some 
condition. Hence the reality of the Cosmos must bo 
immutable in its essence, immutable in its state of be- 
ing, and therefore the doctrines and theories of all Pan- 
theists are false. 

It is, indeed, strange that intellectual men, men of 
deep study and great research, but of still greater pre- 
tension, should undertake to falsify the sublime truths 
of religion. They assert without a particle of proof, 
traditional, historical or scientific, that the holy Bible 
is not the word of the Omniscient God. They make to 
themselves a bible and a god after their own fashion, 
and then invite men to fall down and adore the vagaries 
of their imagination. They admit, when pressed to 
give a proof of their aberrations, that they deal only in 
suppositions. Yet in their suppositious temerity they 
dare to deny the God that made them; and would, if 
they could, with a dash of the pen, strike Him out of 
existence. How sublimely simple, how beautifully true 
is the account in the holy Bible of man's origin and 
destiny! God made man from the earth, and made him 
after his own image. He created him a helpmate like 
himself. He gave them counsel, and a tongue, eyes, and 
ears, and a heart to desire, and He filled them with 



man's destiny. 215 

knowledge and understanding. He created in tliem the 
science of the spirit. He filled their hearts with wisdom, 
and showed them both good and evil; and their eyes 
saw the majesty of His glory, and their ears heard His 
voice when He said to them: " Beware of all iniquity." 
Here is a covenant, a law, and the end of the law is 
justice in Christ and union wdth God. What a destiny! 
To attain it, man must be found on the day of trial con- 
formable to the image of His Son. He must be pure 
and holy. He must do the will of the Eternal Father 
— he must observe the law; he must keep the Command- 
ments: "He that hath my commandments and keepeth 
them, he it is that loveth me." — " He that doth the will 
of my Father, who is in heaven, he shall enter into the 
kingdom of heaven." Man, then, has a destiny, a 
glorious destiny. He feels it, he knows it. There is 
within him a consciousness; yea, a hope that never dies. 
He has a destiny, a grand one. Art and science pro- 
claim it; tradition and history proclaim it; the nations, 
tribes and tongues proclaim it; all creation in one 
magnificent chorus proclaims it; and it is only the fool 
that says in his heart there is no God. Man has a des- 
tiny, then, equal to all the yearnings, the longings, the 
desires, the capabilities of the soul; one that buoys up 
the heart in the dreariest moments of life; one that 
spreads out before the mind visions of limitless beauty; 
that gives to the will a divine basis for action, and to 
the whole soul the bright promise of the fruition of a 
good life, — union with its God forever. What a destiny 
is here, to see and enjoy God; to know all things as they 
are, to love wdth all the affections, and to feel that that 
love is reciprocated; to have power, and knowledge, 
and wisdom and happiness, and to be certain of losing 



216 KISMET. 



them never! This is grand. In thinking of it, the be- 
lieving, grateful soul cries out in the fullness of its joj : 
Thou art good. Oh! Lord, and worthy of honor and 
glory and praise forever and ever. 



KISMET. 

By Thomas J. Vivian. 

An Arab sits at the door of his tent, 

Allah, Bismillah, God is great! 
And his eyes on the western skies are bent; 

Kismet, Kismet, such is fate! 
He waits and he waits for a traveling gent, 

Allah, Akbar, God is great! 
To whom his goat's-hair mat he lent. 

Kismet, Kismet, such is fate! 
But the mat will never come back as it went, 

Allah, Bismillah, God is great! 
And that Arab still sits at the door of his tent, 

Effendi, backsheesh, such is fate! 
With his beard all torn and his burnous rent, 

Khoran Mahmoud, God is great! 
His wife chastised as an anger's vent, 

Bastinado, such is fate! 
Whilst he sighs as a sorrowful sort of lament, 

Yenge, Akbar, God is great! 

Kismet, Kismet, such is fate! 



PHILLIS WHEATLEY. 217 



PHILLIS WHEATLEY. 

By Benson J. Lossing. 

One beautiful morning in May, 1761, Mrs. TVlieatley, 
wife of a merchant, went to the Boston slave-market to 
purchase a female child that she might rear to be a 
faithful nurse for her mistress in her old age. A cargo 
of slaves had arrived at Newport from the Guinea coast 
the week before, and a part of them had been sent to 
the Boston market. Among the latter were several 
plump, healthy looking children, but Mrs. Wheatley was 
more attracted by one of delicate frame, intelligent iaco 
and modest demeanor, who sat in a corner, wrapped 
about in a piece of dirty carpet. The soft, sweet voice 
of Mrs. Wheatley warmed the heart of the little waif, 
and she clung to the hand of the good woman as to that 
of a mother, when she was led away to the chaise of Mrs. 
Wheatley. The child seemed to be about seven years 
of age, with apt imitative powers, and she was given the 
name of Phillis. She soon began to understand the 
language of her mistress and to speak a few words in- 
telligibly. She seemed to have but little knowledge of 
the place Avhere she was born, but remembered it was 
near a large stream of water, with tall trees standing 
around the dwelling which was covered with branches 
and grass. She also remembered seeing her mother, 
who Avas a tall, stout woman, pour out water from a 
calabash before the sun at its rising. 

With the development of her intellectual faculties, the 
moral nature of Phillis kept pace. Mrs. Wheatley 's 
daughter taught the girl to read and write, and her 
progress in learning was wonderful. Before she was 
ten years of age she could read the Bible fluently. She 



218 PHILLIS WHEATLEY. 

was extremely amiable, perfectly docile, and beloved by 
all who kuew lier. As she grew to young womanhood 
she attracted attention, and as she read books with 
great avidity, she was supplied with a variety. Her 
mistress was very indulgent, and allowed her ample time 
for study and improvemeut. 

Piety was a controlling element of Phillis's nature, 
and tears of gratitude to God and her kind mistress 
often filled her eyes. As she advanced in life, her 
thoughts found expression in poetry. One morning in 
June when Nature was dressed in the plentitude of its 
riches, she was in the garden before sunrise plucking 
flowers, as usual, to place before her mistress at table. 
Around the stems she neatly wrapped a piece of Avhite 
paper, on which she had written a poem while sitting 
under a blooming peach-tree, commencing with the fol- 
lowing stanza: 

" 'Twas Mercy brought me from my pagan land, 
Taught my benighted soul to understand 
That there's a God, — that there's a Savior, too: 
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew." 

Sometimes her compositions were in prose, but more 
frequently they took the form of verse. Phillis w^as 
often a guest in the families of the rich and learned, for 
she was regarded as a prodigy. Her mistress treated 
her as if she were her own child, and was very fond of 
her ward. On one occasion, Phillis was away from 
home on a visit, and as the weather was inclement, Mrs. 
Wheatley sent one of her slaves with the chaise for her. 
Prince, a colored servant, took his seat by the side of 
Phillis. As they drew up before the house and their 
mistress saw them, the good woman indignantly ex- 
claimed: "Do but look at the saucy varlet; he has had 



PHILLIS WHEATLEY. 219 

the impudence to sit upon the same seat Tvitli Phillis!" 
The man-servant was severely reprimanded for liis for- 
getfuluess of the dignity of Phillis. 

When Phillis was about sixteen years of age, she be- 
came a communicant at the " Old South Cburch " in 
Boston, of Vv'hich the venerable Dr. Joseph Sewell was 
then pastor. Earlier than that event, she had written 
several poems, remarkable for vigor of thought, correct 
lythm, pathos in expression, and piety in sentiment. 

The health of Phillis became so feeble in the summer 
of 1778, that a sea voyage for her was recommended. 
A son of Mr. Wheatley going to England, Pbillis 
accompanied him. Her fame as a poet having gone 
before her, in certain circles she was cordially received 
by distinguished persons. Among them were Lord 
Dartmouth and Selina Shirley, Countess of Hunting- 
don, the distinguished patroness of the Calvinistic 
Methodists, for whom she built chapels, disposing of 
her fine equipage and jewels to obtain the money for 
the purpose. While Phillis was in England, her poems 
were collected and published, with a dedication to the 
Countess of Huntingdon, and attracted great attention. 
The book was embellished with a portrait of her, in 
profile, in which she is represented with a close-fitting 
cape, sleeves open nearly to the elbow, and a plain white 
kerchief covering her neck and bosom. She w^as per- 
suaded to remain in London until the return of the 
Court, so as to be presented to the King; but hearing of 
the declining health of her mistress, she hastened home. 
That kind friend was soon laid in the grave, and Phillis 
grieved as deeply as any of her children. 

Mr. Wheatley died soon after the decease of his Avife; 
and his only daughter lived but a few months longer. 
Phillis was left destitute and desolate. A very intelli- 



220 riilLLIS WHEATLEY. 

gent free colored man named Peters, offered liis hand to 
the orphan, and it was accepted. He proved to be 
utterly unworthy of the gentlo creature whom he had 
wedded, and her life was embittered by neglect and 
even cruelty. They went into the country to live, in 
1777, but soon returned to Boston. 

The misfortunes of Phillis seem to have silenced her 
muse, for she wrote nothing of much excellence after 
the publication of the volume of her poems in 1773, and 
the death of her mistress, excepting a poetic epistle to 
Washington, dated October 26, 1775, while he was 
prosecuting the siege of Boston. He answered it on 
the twenty-eighth day of the following February, as 
follows : 

" Miss Phillis: Your favor of the twenty-sixth of October 
did not reach my hands until the middle of December. 
Time enough, you might say, to have given an answer ere 
this. Granted. But a variety of important occurrences 
continually interposing to distract my mind and withdraw 
my attention, will, I hope, apologize for the delay, and I 
plead this excuse for the seeming but not real neglect. I 
thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me in 
the elegant lines you enclosed; and however undeserving I 
may be of such encomium and panegyric, the style and 
manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents; in 
honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would 
have published the poem had I not been apprehensive that, 
while I only meant to give the world this new instance of 
your genius, I might have incurred the imputation of van- 
ity. This, and nothing else, determined me not to give it 
a place in the public prints. 

If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near head- 
quarters, I shall be happy to see a person so favored by the 



PHILLIS WHEATLEY. 221 

Muses, and to whom nature has been so liberal and benefi- 
cent in her dispensations. 

I am, with great respect, your obedient, humble servant. 

Geo. Washington." 

Phillis was then living near Waltham Avitli a whig 
family who had fled from Boston. She soon afterward 
married, as before stated, and led an unhappy life with 
her husband several years, when he abandoned her. A 
few years more of misery were endured, when the 
golden bowl of her life was broken. In a filthy apart- 
ment, in an obscure part of Boston, that gifted woman 
whose childhood and youth had been passed in ease, 
even luxury, was allowed to perish alone ! Phillis 
Wheatley died on the fifth of December, 1794, when she 
was about forty-one years of age. 

Such, in brief, is a record of the career of a poor, 
captive African child, cast on the shores of another 
continent, more than three thousand miles from her 
birth-place; rising to a certain eminence in the world of 
letters, and becoming an exemplary Christian wife and 
mother. Her life presents various useful lessons for the 
contemplation of the thoughtful. 



222 CHARITY KINDERGARTENS. 



CHAKITY KINDERGAETENS. 

By Mrs. Mary (Horace) Mann. 

The establishment of kindergartens in America lias 
been of slow growth. In Austria, no sooner was their 
true significance seen by the friends of education, than 
the Government decreed that the kindergarten must be 
at the basis of all education. The ignorant stand in the 
relation of children to the educated, and it cannot be 
denied, we think, that it is the duty of those who enjoy 
a privilege to take measures that less favored classes 
shall be put in the way of sharing it. The truly benev- 
olent man cannot enjoy happiness if he feels that others 
are shut out from it. The theory of our Government is 
that there shall be no monopoly of happiness or well- 
being; but till moral education is in the ascendency, the 
fear is that it will remain a theory and not be lived up 
to. Dr. Erasmus Schwab, of Vienna, in a late work 
called " The School -garden," says justly that the meas- 
ure of the advancement of any given community depends 
upon the attention bestowed upon public education. 
Every well-to-do man attends, more or less intelligently, 
to the education of his own children; but it is only the 
truly enlightened who realize that the greatest help to 
the good education of their own children, is that the ed- 
ucation of all shall be secured. *'None can be clean 
unless all are clean," is a true saying of Hawthorne in 
" Our Old Home." 

If it were not for benevolent exceptions to the general 
apathy of society iibout public improvement, we should 
get on very slowly about radical reforms. Individuals 
endowed Avitli good causality and warm hearts com- 
bined, start out occasionally and devote themselves to 



CHARITY KINDERGARTENS. 223 

some great amelioration of society. They see the bear- 
iugs of such ideas as lie at the basis of some great im- 
provement, and give themselves, heart and hand, to the 
work on such a scale that the blind are made to see 
what otherwise would have been hidden from them. 

The cause of kindergartens, as this paper began by 
asserting, has been of slow growth, but an extra effort,, 
carried into effect by the zeal of Miss Elizabeth Peabody, 
who had long been interested in the subject, and who 
went to Europe to study into it, to have a kindergarten 
in full operation at the Centennial Exposition in Phila- 
delphia, gave a sudden impetus to it. The teacher se- 
lected for the duty organized a class of poor children at 
an orphan-house in Philadelphia, and though thwarted 
in every possible way by the jealousy of the Matron and 
other officials, succeeded by undaunted perseverance in 
gaining the affections and the confidence of the children, 
and thus developing in them the faculties which had 
hitherto been hidden under a bushel, so that visitors 
from all parts of the country thronged the pretty little 
building that was erected for the purpose in the Ladies' 
Department, and saw for themselves what good, sys- 
tematic training of the faculties and cultivation of the 
kindly affections could develop in little children under 
six years of age. 

Private kindergartens had convinced many mothers 
that such training, intellectual and social, had great 
advantages over even the best homes, because it put 
children among their equals in age, and taught them to 
bear and forbear, instead of being petted and rebuffed 
alternately, as all children are, more or less, in their 
homes where the circle consists of children of different 
ages and different wants, so that systematic treatment 
is almost impossible. It was found that three hours a 



224 CHARITY KINDERGABTENS. 

clay of sucli life organized the minds and regulated the 
lives of the children wonderfully. Babes of three and 
four years, who fretted in the nursery, were made per- 
fectly happy in the kindergartens, where punishments 
were not required, because all were happily employed, 
and taught by love to treat one another lovingly, no un- 
necessary collisions of self-interest being in the way. 
It is not meant by this that occasions of self-control 
and disinterested action do not sometimes arise in 
kindergartens; but those who have studied child-naturo 
most deeply, know that an appeal to the higher senti- 
ments in children always meets with a response, condi- 
tions being equal. The child that has been driven to 
selfishness and self-defense because his rights have been 
ignored, finds himself treated with uniform kindness 
and respect (the latter is too often forgotten in the treat- 
ment of children), and is disarmed of his shield of self- 
ishness and self-defense, and becomes generous and 
humble. These effects seen in kindergartens kept for 
children w^ho were sometimes as w^ell taken care of as 
thev can be at home, made the benevolent feel that the 
neglected children of the streets ought to share in such 
benefits, and an effort w^as made to gather some of them 
together. 

Happily, a true Massachusetts woman, who is very 
wealthy, determined to try the experiment on a largo 
scale, and now supports twenty or more charity kinder- 
gartens, at an annual expense of not less than $1200 for 
each. She planted them at first in various places, 
singly. In Cambridge she supports four, in Boston 
six. The effect surpasses all expectation. Children 
are gathered in from the streets, from three years old to 
six; profane, obscene, thieving, untruthful, quarrel- 
some, untidy, half -clothed and half-fed; many Avith in- 



CHARITY KINDERGARTENS. 225 

temperate parents, who manage them only with blows 
and harsh words. From actual observation the state- 
ment is here made that in three weeks such children 
are quiet, orderly, affectionate to one another, display 
bright faculties in their occupations, drop all bad lan- 
guage while in the kindergarten, and often when out of 
it; behave well in the street, and are little shining lights 
at home. Of course it takes time to deepen these im- 
pressions, but the very faces of the mothers change 
their expression under the silent instruction that flows 
from the influence of the teachers, who become oracles 
to them as well as to their children, and of whom the 
mothers speak as if they were ministering angels, whose 
patience and wisdom surpass their understanding, but 
become undeniable facts. In the mothers' meetings, 
which are adjuncts of these kindergartens, they speak 
of the wonderful effects upon their children, who, they 
say, are exemplary in their conduct. 

In Cambridge, as many as eighty children, in differ- 
ent parts of the city, are under this benign treatment. 
In some of the kindergartens where the teachers are 
gifted in that respect, the singing of the children is ex- 
ceedingly good. Their every act, as it were, is set to 
music. When they move from their seats to the ]3lay- 
ring they join hands and personate a river, with beauti- 
ful descriptive verses, or march in unison, or hop 
together, and the symbolic plays are attended at times 
with calisthenic exercises. All the kindergartens have 
model gardens, and the school-yard of one public school 
building in which the city has granted a room for a 
kindergarten, a charity kindergarten, not included in the 
public-school system, the same presiding spirit has 
ornamented with a garden border of six feet, for the 
children; and has extended this boon to all the children 
15 



226 CHARITY KINDERGARTENS. 

of the primary school kept in the same building. An- 
other kindergarten is in a new police building, by per- 
mission of the city council. A day nursery is soon to 
be added under the same auspices, and out of the same 
purse, in which children from the age when they begin 
to speak and run about, are to be kept from eight in the 
morning till six in the evening, when the mothers wish 
to go out to work, or are disabled by sickness. 

After a year spent in these kindergartens, and, truly, 
long before, these children behave as well as those in 
the aristocratic kindergartens. The characteristics are 
different. The poor children are sometimes taught to 
steal and to swear by their own parents, and it takes 
time to put new ideas into their heads and hearts; but 
one of the instructors testifies that, whereas stealing 
was as natural as breathing to them when they first 
came, she can now, after a year, trust all but a few, even 
in leaving money on her table. Her first efforts are 
directed to eradicating the stealing propensity, and then 
she feels as if the ground were prepared for an attack 
upon the untruthfulness that so generally prevails with 
these children, and which is taught them both by exam- 
ple and by unjust treatment. 

I presume it may be said of some children who are 
treated unjustly, as truly as it may be said cf slaves, 
that the brightest are the most untruthful and artful. 
Is not this natural ? It is their only self-defense, and 
the natural man, I do not mean the normal man who is 
the highest type, as the natural man is the lowest, will 
of course use his wits to shield himself from blame or 
injury. How generally falsehood in children is the 
fault of others rather than any innate sin ! 

The only other place in Massachusetts where all the 
conditions are the best for kindergartens, is the manu- 



CHARITY KINDERGARTENS. 227 

facturiDg town of Florence, where a capitalist who has 
retired from business has erected a noble building, 
surrounded with gardens, for the express purpose of 
devoting it to kindergartens. He has invited all the 
people in the town, rich and poor, gentle and simple, 
to send their little children, and promises to pay all the 
expenses they cannot reasonably defray. In the four 
large and beautiful halls are as many large classes, 
under their respective teachers, superintended by a 
Matron who is a mother, and who enters fully into the 
spirit of Mr. Hill, who may be said to be one of the 
few capitalists that recognize their divine mission of 
elevating those who have not the means of elevating 
themselves. Probably, education in all its stages will 
be modified in Florence by the kindergarten which 
forms its basis, for it is seen to work upward wherever it 
has gained a footing. In the kindergarten of Misses Gar- 
land and Weston, who also conduct the Boston Train- 
ing School for Kindergartners, are three stages of in- 
struction on that principle. The first advanced class 
includes reading, writing, and some other light studies, 
such as elementary geography and written arithmetic, 
mental arithmetic being the natural growth of the kin- 
dergarten. 

In a still higher class, in another story of the build- 
ing, is a school of children from the kindergartens be- 
low, in which the sciences are taught from observations 
of nature, and in which other studies are collateral, like 
composition, advanced geography, mathematics, etc., 
the natural sciences being the basis. This course we 
hope in time to see substituted for tho text-book teach- 
ing of the common schools. But we must possess our 
souls in patience for this. The difficulty of convincing, 
even the most educated class, of the advantage of train- 



228 CHARITY KINDERGARTENS. 

ing the artistic faculties and the hand before cultivating 
reflection, has been so long and tedious that we cannot 
expect the general public to give up what may be called 
the crude conception of education, which is reading and 
writing. Custom is the greatest of all tyrants, and one 
often hears the parents of the brightest and best chil- 
dren of the kindergarten say, ''It is time now for my 
child to be learning something," as if the cultivation of 
its observation, attention, artistic power, thinking, the 
use of language and power of expression, the trainiug 
of the voice, the physical exercises, the expansion of 
the imaginative power — as if all this was not ''learniog 
something," as if it were not more valuable than any 
amount of facts that are unrelated, and learned in a desul- 
tory manner. The faculty of comparison, which is at 
the foundation of all thinking, is wonderfully developed 
in children trained in genuine kindergartens. But the 
spurious kindergartens that afflict the land are respon- 
sible for much of this misapprehension. The friends 
of Froebel's idea, those who understand it, will long 
have to battle with these pretenders, who are wolves in 
sheep's clothing, and retard the reform. 

To the listening ear we could demonstrate the effect 
of these charity kindergartens, by relating a hundred 
anecdotes about the children — instances of self-con- 
trol, of self-forgetfulness and sympathy for others. 
The development of their spiritual natures, the recogni- 
tion of principles, is the most interesting of these ob- 
servations. We do not speak of ecclesiasticism. There 
must be no formality here, no set words which mean 
nothing to children; we want something only to be 
inspired by the teacher. In a poetical couplet, an idea 
or a sentiment may be conveyed that will reappear at 



CHARITY ZINDERGAKTENS. 229 

some unexpected moment in an original form, showing 
that ifc lias been assimilated. Music aids this work won- 
derfully. The children sometimes break out with words 
from a song of which they see the appropriateness to 
their circumstances. No praise should profane such 
manifestations; sympathy only is wanted, and that as 
impersonal as possible. Children should not be re- 
quired to do right in order to please the teacher, or any 
one else, as is sometimes done even in some kindergar- 
tens; but it is a departure from the true idea, which is 
that of unfolding, in spiritual matters, and not even of 
reproducing, which is legitimate in intellectual matters, 
if the idea given is reproduced in action. To do right 
because it is right and self-respecting, is not above little 
children. That is the way love acts, and if the in- 
structor sees it, the child will see it, or, perhaps I 
should say, will feel it, for it is '* out of the heart that 
are the issues of life." 

The slightest rebuff will often close a child's lips for 
months, perhaps longer. Sympathy is the only atmos- 
phere for spiritual development. The teacher must be 
humble and willing to learn of the child, who often 
teaches what books cannot. The true kindergarten 
teachers must grow continually. Many have expressed 
strongly that for the first time since their study of the 
subject, have they realized their own powers or the sig- 
nificance of life; and the superior ones wish to go into 
the " charity" work, which is the most arduous, because 
part of the duty is outside of the regular kindergarten's 
hours. Let us have charity kindergartens everywhere. 
We here think it the best lever for elevating society, be- 
cause it begins at the very foundation, and because it 
has revealed the true order of the development of the 



230 CHABITY KINDERGARTENS. 

faculties, for which the true seekers had long groped, 
but which Froebel actually did discover, and perhaps 
Eousseau before him. However, Froebel united with 
it a profound system of ethics, which Kousseau failed 
to do, and therefore failed of the desired end. 

A good way to become acquainted with Froebel's sys- 
tem is to read Baroness Billow's ' ' E-eminiscences of Froe- 
bel," which is an account of her intercourse with him the 
four last years of life, when she had an opportunity, by 
her position, to bring him into acquaintanceship with 
the foremost educators in Germany, with whom he 
talked freely, and whom he brought to recognize and 
acknowledge the profoundness of his insight into the 
fundamental principles of human culture. The cultiva- 
tion of character is the main object in education, and 
that is secured by this system. The moral element in 
culture has not been given its due place hitherto, and 
intellectual training divorced from it is only giviug 
greater power to evil. No one should be trusted with 
knowledge who does not wield it for good uses. Love 
and thinking must go hand in hand, as the poet says, 
and this principle can be instilled into early childhood. 



A CALIFOENIA BOY ABROAD. 231 



A CALIFOENIA BOY ABKOAD. 

By Master Charles B. Hill. 

Like the disgusted Britislier I would say, tliat if 
** Britannia rules the waves," I wish she'd rule them 
straighter. With the memory of many '' troubles in the 
interior" strong upon me, I pass over the days that 
lagged along after the Golden Gate was closed to sight, 
and take up my diary at the time when I first saw the 
April sun shining upon the waters of Yeddo bay. 

Before we reached Yokohama Ave steamed forty-five 
miles up Yeddo bay. The scenery up the channel is 
beautiful; steep, honey-combed cliffs and profuse verd- 
ure everywhere meeting the eye. The profusion ex- 
tends to other things than foliage, the waters of the bay 
being crowded with fish, in whose pursuit are crowds of 
fishermen. Two boats take up a station; those in one 
boat drop out a big bag-shaped net, and those in the 
other boat pull about, splash the water, shout and howl 
like so many madmen. The fish foolish enough to get 
scared run into the net and are hauled up. Yeddo bay, 
at no place particularly deep, shallows up considerably 
towards Yokohama. Steamers do not touch at Avharves 
as in San J&Vancisco, but anchor out a mile from the 
Hatabar or landing-place. 

Having answered the lighthouse signals and shut off 
steam, we next saluted the United States steamer "Ten- 
nessee," which was in port. As soon as we had swung 
to, stream-boats innumerable surrounded us, amongst 
them being gigs from the ' ' Tennessee " and other vessels, 
and a steam-tug bearing a custom-house officer. All the 
rest were sampans, rowed by a man and boy, or woman 
and girl, laden with fruit and curios, or else men clamor- 



232 A CALIFORNIA BOY ABROAD. 

ing for passengers. Amongst them were runners for 
hotels, wlio shouted the *' Grand," and the "Inter- 
national," with such well-remembered harshness that it 
made me feel quite homesick. Our stay in Japanese 
waters was limited to a few hours only. Chartering a 
sampaUf I started for shore with a companion. No 
sooner had we touched land than a whole lot of bare- 
legged Japs scampered off and made a break for the city 
gate, which, when we arrived there, we found barred by 
all these fellows between the shafts of their respective 
jinrickshas. The jinricksha is a two-wheeled vehicle, 
light in build and gaily painted, just for all the world 
like an enormous perambulator with a hood, which can 
be put up or lowered at pleasure. Generally it is run 
by a single coolie in the shafts, but for a longer journey 
another pushes behind. The jinricksha man wears 
little except a loin cloth and a very broad straw hat. 
The fare is most exorbitant, being no less than ten 
sens (cents), per hour! If you want to take a trip into 
the country, jump into o, jinricksha, and go where you 
like, the coolie jogs untiredly along. Put up where 
you like for the night, the coolie will curl himself up 
in hi^ jinricksha and go to sleep. Start for town next 
day when you like, and the coolie will take you back 
and be well satisfied if you pay him one dollar and a 
half. 

The Japanese government has under its control a 
railroad and telegraph line to Yeddo, sixteen miles up 
the island. The train runs the distance in about an 
hour, and a telegram does not take much longer to 
reach its destination! First, it has to be written in the 
language of the sender, then translated into Japanese, 
and then translated back into the original language at 
its point of destination. I took the train for Yeddo, 



A CALIFORNIA BOY ABROAD. 233 

now called Tokio, tlie largest city in tlie Mikado's do- 
minions. Aligbtiiig at the spacious depot, I was 
met bj Mr. Wilson, brother of Mr. Wilson, the 
the principal of the Lincoln Grammar School in 
San Francisco. He led us through the suburbs, 
Hongo, Kaga and Yashika, the last being the place 
which the foreign residents most delight to honor. 
There are enough Americans and English here to form 
a distinct society. Mr. Wilson kindly placed himself 
and 'Urap" at our disposal, and daring the afternoon 
we visited many places of interest. One spot but a 
mile or two from Yeddo, was at once strange and grand 
in appearance. It was a huge court-yard, to which, 
whenever a man in authority dies, a statue is brought 
and erected. As every statue is precisely like its neigh- 
bor, and the number of the deceased mounts well up 
into the thousands, the effect of this countless army of 
uniform figures was, it may be imagined, indeed most 
weird and telling. After a visit to the famous mam- 
moth statue of Buddha, we proceeded to the Osahasu, 
or general fair. Here is a very celebrated temple, the 
road to which is lined with stores. In the temple were 
idols of every size and every description of ugliness 
under heaven. To all of them priests were praying, 
each priest having his particular idol, each idol being 
within a particular inclosure, and each inclosure having 
attached to it a large box for the reception of offerings. 
Pennies and sens were rattling into these boxes, the 
givers accompanying each donation with a sharp clap- 
ping of the hands, at which signal the priest would offer 
up a new prayer and some poor soul would be satisfied. 
In the center of the temple was a wooden idol, which 
looked quite as much like a half-burnt stump of an old 
tree as anything I could think of. Not a feature, not 



234 A CALIFORNIx^ BOY ABROAD. 

even a limb was recognizable, and it was not long before 
I found out tlie reason. As we were looking at this 
block-god an old woman drew near, rubbed its stomach 
and then her own. Next a man with a sore leg, who 
rubbed the idol's right leg and then his own. It was 
an idol of aches and sores! I had a headache at the 
time, and Mr. Wilson suggested that I try the idol's 
efficacy by the virtue of rubbiug, but when I saw the 
collection of human ills which were rubbed into the 
idol, I remembered all I had heard of contagion, and 
left the ugly thing alone. 

In an hour or two thereafter, our time, according to 
schedule, having expired, I was aboard the "Gaelic," 
steaming out of Yeddo bay, bound for Hongkong. 

Although Hongkong is thought by many to be an in- 
tegral part of the Chinese empire, it is really one of the 
numerous outlying portions of the British possessions. 
The names of its principal streets, its local government 
and a large part of its inhabitants are English. The 
aspect of Hongkong is singularly beautiful. Built on 
the steep side of the mountain known as Victoria Peak, 
the whole place is laid out in terraces, the handsome 
houses in their clusters of trees and gardens of bright 
flowers looking like so many parterres in one large 
pleasure ground. 

As at Yokohama, so at Hongkong, we anchored some 
quarter of a mile off the town and took a sampan to get 
on shore. The streets are splendidly kept, and, with 
the profusion of trees look like a carriage-drive through 
a forest. Further up the hill lies the park, with a 
stream of water from the Peak running through it, and 
winding walks traversing it like a labyrinth. The 
English portion of the city is quite distinct from the 
Chinese, and its principal street. Queen's road, is a 



A CALIFOKNIA BOY ABROAD. 235- 

broad tliorouglifare, flanked on each side by imposing 
public buildings. In the Chinese quarter, however, as 
in that of San Francisco, cleanliness is the exception. 
The houses are generally large, but crammed full of 
people, like bees in a hive. But, though the native and 
EDglish quarters are separate, many of the wealthier 
and English-speaking Chinese merchants have their 
stores on Queen's road. 

Of course, everybody who visits Hongkong makes 
the ascent of Victoria peak. So one afternoon at half 
past three, taking three sedan-chairs and ten coolies, 
we started out. The distance by road is two miles and 
a half, and the sheer hight one thousand seven hundred 
feet. Agile and sure footed as the chair bearers are, 
they could only take us about half way, w^hen we had to 
get out and climb the xest of the distance. At the 
summit is an arrangement of flag posts on which are 
hoisted the signals of incoming ships. Near it is a 
look-out house fitted with telescopes, and as soon as 
a speck is sighted, up goes the union jack; then, as the 
vessel nears, her nationality and then her rig, and so on, 
are signaled. Descending by the Pok-Ful-um road, we 
made the round trip of six miles and a half in three 
hours. 

The Chinese theaters of Hongkong have so strong a 
family likeness to those in San Francisco that I need 
say nothing about them, except that the evening we 
spent at one of these places the following little bit of 
graceful acrobatics was indulged in. A man clambered 
to the top of a heap of tables that rose fully fifteen feet 
in the air, turned a somersault, and just as he was near- 
ing the stage below, another man rushed forward and 
kicked the falling man in the stomach with such force 
as not only to send the tumbler up in the air again, but 



236 A CALIFOBNIA BOY ABROAD. 

to land the kicker himself flat on his back. After which, 
both got up, jumped around a little, smiled, and made 
their exits. 

The day after ascending Victoria Peak, we made a 
trip to Canton, which lies on the Canton river, niuetj- 
six miles from Hongkong. Steamers ply between the 
two places every day. The charge from Hongkong to 
Canton used to be six dollars for Europeans and one 
dollar for Chinese; now it is, Europeans one dollar and 
Chinese ten cents. 

On leaving Hongkong, we slipped through the Cap- 
sing-Moon pass into the Canton river, and in doing so, 
crossed the water-mark which divides the deep yellow 
of the river from the green of the bay, as clearly and 
sharply as though drawn with a rule. The first place 
of importance pointed out to us was Bacca Tigres, for 
hundreds of years considered an impregnable point by 
the Chinese, until the English, aided by the Americans, 
knocked the forts to pieces, dismantled every gun and 
razed every brick. The cannon are still to be seen ly- 
ing in shallow water. No wonder the Chinese govern- 
ment demurred against being compelled by the English 
to leave the ruins as they are, for the river here nar- 
rows to one eighth of a mile and there is an island in 
the middle of the stream. If this island were properly 
fortified, the access to Canton by river might easily be 
prevented. 

Confucius, a name given to the burying-place of the 
gods, is the next point of interest. The cunning priests 
have chosen the river as the place in which to hide the 
remains of their deities. Instead of grave-stones, the 
resting-places of these myths are marked by buoys. 
Just before reaching Canton, the boat stops at Wham- 
poa, formerly one of the greatest trading-posts in China; 



A CALIFORNIA BOY ABROAD. 237 

now it is half-desertecl and altogether in ruins. But 
one ship was there at the time of our visit. Canton, at 
a little distance, looks like a city of boats, and indeed 
half Canton lives in and on the water. Thousands of 
sampans lie away up the river as tightly and evenly 
packed as sardines. The houses all along the water- 
front seem to merge into the boats, and the whole city 
lies flat, unbroken by a single tower. Anything bleaker 
and more monotonous it would be impossible to im- 
agine. 

Saturday the rain was too heavy to permit of our 
leaving the steamer, but on Sunday we were trotted 
through the city, and I have a recollection of jumping 
from the sedan-chairs into puddles; of seeing men 
grinding grain in a thing like a cider-press; of young 
boys weaving the most delicate silks; of ^^q hundred 
genii Avho sit forever on pedestals staring at one an- 
other, all with bright yellow faces; of dismal chanting 
by the priests; of a chamber of horrors, where the tor- 
tures of the damned are represented by everything that 
is ghastly; of a glass factory, where a smart Chinaman 
blew a ball of three inches in diameter into a vase six 
feet high and four feet wide; and of getting back to the 
steamer drenched and tired. Then came an easy run 
down the river, with a single ray of sunlight lighting 
the crest of Victoria peak, and falling aslant Hongkong. 



238 THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 



THE LIBEKTY OF THE PEESS. 

By Philip A. Roach. 

The liberty of the Press is formidable to tyrants only. 
The sublime achievements of the Patriot Fathers in 
securing our national independence would have been of 
trifling value, had they not also provided the agency to 
perpetuate it. The struggle in 1776 was against kingly 
aggressions, and the then comparative liberty of publi- 
cation enabled the colonists to organize and defy arbi- 
trary power. The contest of the near future will be 
against corporate exaction, and in that struggle, with 
wealth on one side, popular rights can only be main- 
tained by an able, honest and fearless Press. Nations 
now enjoying civil and religious freedom, obtained that 
boon after a severe struggle in which writers, defying 
despotic power, exposed the tyranny and corruption of 
Courts, and awakened the better sentiments of rulers to 
redress grievances. The language of truth is always 
.powerful, and it finds its way, when boldly spoken, even 
to the hearts of despots. Its voice cannot be stifled by 
censorship nor imprisonment. The type has perpetual 
existence; those impersonal messengers of thought dread 
neither bastiles nor bullets. 

The English monarchy has been changed from a per- 
sonal government to a representative one. The contest 
between the Crown and Commons was fiercely fought 
for several centuries. The first political publications 
were in pamphlet form, which were succeeded, later on 
in the struggle between the King and Parliament, by 
semi-weekly journals. With the restoration of the 
"Merry Monarch" came a suppression of freedom of 
publication, and under the reign of the Georges, writers 



THE LIBERTY OF THE PEESS. 239 

who durst attack the government were fined, pilloried, 
imprisoned and branded. But persecution availed not. 
Journalism panoplied itself in impenetrable armor. It 
fearlessly exposed tlie corruption of tlie government and 
the venality of Ministers. ''Junius," behind a shield as 
protective as that of Minerva, Launched thunderbolts of 
invective upon his adversaries. All means to find him 
out proved abortive. His publisher, Woodfall, was 
faithful, and the superiority of impersonal journalism 
was proven in a manner that cannot be shaken by any 
series of circumstances which have transpired in recent 
times. The minions of the House of Hanover trembled 
with impotent rage at the fulminations of the unknown 
and intangible "Junius," since whose time the influence 
of journalism has steadily increased. The leading 
minds of the British Empire have found the Press a 
more potent agency to influence public opinion than 
oratory. Statesmen, prime ministers and men of sci- 
ence, do not now, as formerly, address public meetings, 
or if they do, it is in order to have their utterances re- 
produced and given to multitudes that no hall would 
accommodate, and which even the voice of Stentor would 
fail to reach. Many social problems are being solved 
by persons who have not the lung-power to make them- 
selves heard from the platform, yet millions read their 
thoughts, ponder them, and become active agents, giv- 
ing them publicity in the circle of influence in which 
they move. 

The yearnings of nations for liberty of speech and 
thought is evidenced by the uprisings and revolutions 
which have taken place among the races of the Old and 
!New World. The efforts of man to obtain self-govern- 
ment, or even a reasonable degree of personal liberty, 
commences with the thoughtful writer. The masses 



240 THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 

surroundiDg liim must be constautly instructed in their 
rights and duties, and the daily newspaper, and not the 
public meeting, gives the cheapest, easiest and best test 
for proving that the pen, as a teacher of political truths, 
is mightier than the tongue. I wish to make no dis- 
paraging comparison as to the merits of the fieedom 
of Speech and the liberty of the Press. They are 
the twin-children of intelligence; they are the giant- 
workers who have only commenced their labors in de- 
veloping the arts and sciences; in teaching mankind 
their rights, and in wresting fiom Nature a knowledge of 
the grand principles sustaining the universe. 

Two peoples who fought a century ago, on the same 
battle-fields, have formed powerful governments based 
on the principles of popular sovereignty, administered 
through the system of universal suffrage. France now 
enjoys the glorious name of Commonwealth after three 
baptisms of fire and blood. Revolution went backward 
under the violent reaction of monarchism, but the in- 
tellectual power of France could not be chained. The 
limited freedom allowed to the Press under Louis 
XVIII. and Charles X., gave uneasiness to the band of 
absolutist rulers* known as the Holy Alliance. Polignac 
brought in his decrees to suppress the liberty of the 
Press, and the right of public meeting; then uprose the 
barricades. France had her lievolution of July, and 
the lineal heir of the good and wise St. Louis was a 
fugitive from the- throne of his fathers. The Press had 
not been free long enough to make Hepublicans, but a 
step in acknowledging the sovereignty of the people was 
made. Louis Phillippe was crowned King of the 
French, and was called the Citizen-king, but sufirage 
was extremely limited; less than two hundred and 
eighty thousand, where there are now nearly eight mill- 



THE LIBERTY OP THE PRESS. 241 

ions, exercised the elective franchise. The efforts of 
the Citizen-king were largely devoted to the suppression 
of the liberty of the Press and liberty of speech. There 
was a constant struggle during his reign of eighteen 
years between intelligence and absolutism. The rights 
of the people to assemble and the liberty of publication 
were denied. Gaizot brought forward the Decrees, and 
on February 22, 1848, the Citizen-king was a fugitive, 
and France for the second time became a republic for 
a limited period. Then came the coup d'etat and the 
establishment of the second empire, whose restrictive 
laws on the Press and liberty of speech, which pre- 
vented the honest criticism of public measures, led to 
the most terrible disaster which ever befell a nation. 
Sedan and Metz, Alsace and Lorraine would not now be 
associated in the minds of a gallant people with disaster 
and dismemberment, had such freedom of discussion 
been permitted in France as is allowed in Great Britain 
and the United States. The laws on the Press are lib- 
eral now compared with what they were under the 
kingly and imperial Governments, but as the republic 
is in its third form of existence, its performance can 
only be secured by making the Press perfectly free and 
responsible. 

If space permitted, I would say something about the 
three continental nations whose literature is rich in 
everything within the domain of art^ science and letters; 
but their intellectual power is limited in two directions 
now in detriment to national interests and national 
safety. Intelligence, acted upon by the great motors of 
modern civilization, will burst all barriers if denied ex- 
pansion, and produce social revolution. The great em- 
pires, by oppressive enactments, may for a time repress 
freedom of thought, but that element of human intelli- 
16 



242 THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 

gence will not long remain within tlie limited bound- 
aries within which arbitrary power would confine it. 
Like water within the hollow sphere, congealed by arti- 
ficial agencies, in a genial atmosphere it will expand 
and burst its iron tomb; and so will thought, although 
perpetual banishment to Siberia's solitudes were, the 
punishment for its free expression. 

The Federal Constitution, adopted by the requisite 
number of States, went into operation in 1789. But 
that instrument did not contain the provision which has 
secured us liberty of conscience, freedom of speech and 
of the press, and the right of public meeting. At one 
time it was feared the Constitution would not be rati- 
fied by the requisite number of States, and journalism 
was resorted to to insure a favorable result. The mas- 
ter-minds of the country established a newspaper to 
efiect their purpose. It was called the ^'Federalist." 
Its articles were anonymous, and so faithfully was the 
secret kept, that some of the able papers which ap- 
peared in its columns are attributed to various parties; 
but enough is known to state beyond all doubt that 
Hamilton, Jay and Madison were the authors. Theirs 
was a precious example, which the experience of time 
has approved. To a free people, impersonality in jour- 
nalism is as necessary as the secresy of the ballot. 

The most glorious article in our Constitution was an 
amendment which, with others, was ratified December 
15, 1791. It reads as follows: "Congress shall make 
no law respecting an establishment of religion, or pro- 
hibiting the free exercise thereof, or of abridging the 
freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the 
people peacefully to assemble and petition Congress 
for a redress of grievances." Every State of the Union 
has an article of similar import in its Constitution, and 



THE LIBERTY OE THE PRESS. 243 

these four f andamental principles above recited appear 
to be firmlj guarded against hostile attack. As the 
mission of an honest press is to expose corruption, 
thwart the plots of schemers, and prove itself the advo- 
cate of popular rights, at various times the Federal 
and State governments, through pernicious influences, 
Lave attempted to abridge its liberty and destroy its 
usefulness, and to that end vexatious laws have been 
enacted to limit its utterances; but the honest journal- 
ist, if he have truth on his side, fears not such enact- 
ments, and an enlightened public opinion has main- 
tained the freedom of the press in every State of the 
Union. That liberty rightfully exercised — the publica- 
tion of truth, with good motives and for justifiable ends, 
is our best security against the dangers of social revol- 
ution. 

At the present time there are elements of unrest af- 
fecting the body politic; special privileges to corpora- 
tions have given their managers immense power and 
prodigious wealth. The spirit of monopoly has spread 
its grasp over many things that are the heritage of the 
people. The forest, the mine, the water-course, and 
public land have been appropriated, not for use, but 
for extortion and monopolization. Wealth, under our 
present system, is rapidly becoming concentrated, and 
colossal fortunes are accumulating, while the masses 
are becoming poorer and poorer. These circumstances 
have invited the press to the discussion of two prob- 
lems, and its efforts are proving that there should not 
be antagonism between the two factors of material pros- 
perity. Capital and labor have a common foe; each has 
the same enemy. Both alike dread the monopolization 
of wealth. Labor complains of unjust taxation; capi- 
tal, that its activities are burdened from the same cause; 



24:4: THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 

while the enormous wealth of the millionaires is invited 
to assume a passive condition by investment in non- 
taxable securities. The danger is that the evils will 
accumulate if not arrested bj proper measures. The 
redress of grievances which are felt in all sections of 
the Union must come from wise legislation, and this 
will result from action of the freedom of speech and the 
freedom of the press. Just taxation, the banishment of 
corrupt influences from legislative bodies, the speedy 
punishment of crime, and the impartial administration 
of justice, are the ground-work on which a better social 
system can be erected. 

In the interests of public morality, the unity of the 
family should be preserved. The law of inheritance 
should prevent an honest and industrious son from be- 
in disingherited to gratify a father's caprice or pride, to 
give the bulk of his fortune to the eldest son to perpet- 
uate his name; the daughter should not be deprived of 
a reasonable portion of her father's wealth because she 
marries an honest clerk, an honest mechanic, or even a 
poor journalist of moral worth. Nor should wealth be 
allowed to perpetuate its tyranny beyond the grave, by 
cutting off the widow with a scant pittance in the event 
of her re-marrying. If the law made good conduct on 
the part of immediate heirs an element in the pro rata 
they should receive, a great good would be obtained in 
preventing the deterioration of wealthy families, and 
courts would not be called upon to expose to public 
gaze the skeleton in the family closet, and society would 
not be scandalized. 

It may be said that the power of the press in the mat- 
ters referred to will prove a broken reed. That im- 
mense wealth can subsidize a newspaper; that it can 
establish new ones, and by lavish expenditures drive its 



THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 245 

honest rivals from the field. The supposition is incor- 
rect. The influence of a journal depends upon the num- 
ber of its readers; that number will be in proportion to 
its honest advocacy of popular rights. A fierce contest 
maj rage between the organs of the millionaires and the 
organs of the million, but the latter will triumph, be- 
cause the intelligence of the masses will discern their 
true interests, and they possess the voting power to 
redress their wrongs. 

It is true that we have grave social questions disturb- 
ing the public mind, but questions equally as great 
have been settled in another land where the press was 
free to discuss them. What greater question was ever 
settled against wealth, power and privilege, by free dis- 
cussion, than abolishing the Corn Law of Great Britain? 
Than the granting of Catholic emancipation to Ireland? 
Than the extension of the electoral franchise in Eng- 
land ? The American people have had too severe a les- 
son taught them by the late Civil War to wish to redress 
their wrongs by force of arms. Four years of war made 
our republic one vast camp ; millions of men were en- 
gaged in fratricidal strife; billions of treasure have 
been wasted, and we shall transmit to coming genera- 
tions a heavy burden upon their labor. The whole 
scheme of our government is based upon the intelli- 
gence of the people. The federal and state constitutions 
provide the most solemn safeguards for popular rights, 
and have wisely determined that the liberty of the press 
shall never be abridged. With such guarantees secur- 
ing its freedom, the latter would prove ungrateful did 
it not advocate the interests of the toiling millions w-ho 
are its moral and pecuniary supporters. Such will be 
its course on all great questions. Its motto is and will 
be, ''The greatest good to the greatest number." 



246 CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE. 



CITY AND COUNTET LIFE COMPAEED. 

By Zach. Montgomery. 

It is an indisputable fact, tlie world over, that in 
bodily stature, muscular development and capacity for 
endurance, people reared in cities are, as a rule, inferior 
to those reared in the country; nor does it require either 
a profound philosopher or a very learned physician to tell 
the reason why. All will admit that among the essen- 
tials to health are pure air, good water, wholesome food, 
regular habits, and proper exercise. But people who 
live in cities must, at best, be content with a second- 
hand atmosphere, and may even consider themselves 
lucky if occasionally permitted to inhale a solitary 
breath which has not already, in part at least, been 
ground through the mills of a thousand lungs. Added 
to this are the smoke and dust which unceasingly 
ascend from work-shops, foundries and factories, to 
say nothing of the nauseous gases and unwholesome 
effluvia, with which numberless laundries, livery stables, 
cess-pools and filthy sewers incessantly fill the air. It is 
seldom one finds in the city pure water, or pure milk, 
or that either fruits or garden vegetables can be 
obtained at the precise stage of maturity which 
renders them most delicious or most conducive to 
health. Nor can it be denied that city people, as a 
rule, sadly neglect those regular habits in eating, 
sleeping and exercise, which are indispensably neces- 
sary to give tone, vigor and proper development to the 
physical man. 

Passing from the inferior to the superior part of man, 
it requires but a moment's reflection to perceive that 
cities are not more favorable to mental and moral health 



CITY AXD COUNTRY LIFE. 247 

ancldevelopmeat, than to tli© health, growth and strength 
of the body. Most of the world's great men have come 
either from the country or country villages. For ex- 
amples: CiDcinnatus, the noblest of all the Romans, 
was reared in the country and led the life of a plowman; 
Alexander the Great was a native of the little town of 
Pella, a village so small that, but for the fact of ils 
having been the birth-place of the world's conqueror, 
the world would never have known of its existence; 
Sir Isaac Newton was the son of a farmer; Shakespeare 
was born in a small country village; George AVashing- 
ton was born, reared and died in the country; Patrick 
Henry, Thomas Jefferson and Daniel Webster were all 
from the countrj'; so was Philpot Curran and so was 
Daniel O'Counell. When the three adorable Persons 
of the Blessed Trinity sat in counsel for the purpose of 
choosing from among all the daughters of Eve, a virgin 
sufficiently pure and spotless to become the Mother of 
the Messiah, they found her not in any of thegreat cities 
of the earth, but in an humble little village of Judca. 
Hence to Nazareth belongs the honor of having cradled 
the world's Redeemer, and to Jerusalem the crime of 
his crucifixion. The Almighty's choicest bolts of 
vengeance have generally fallen on the great, populous 
and proud cities of the world. Thus, it was npon 
Sodom and Gomorrah that fire and brimstone rained 
down from heaven while the neighboring village of 
Segor, the very name of which imports its insignificance, 
was spared. It Avas against such proud and populous 
cities as Nineveh and Tyre, and Babylon and Jerusalem 
that the Almighty, by the tongue of prophecy, hurled 
his most terrible threats and most terribly did ho 
execute them. The prophet Tobias, when foretelling 



248 CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE. 

the downfall of Nineveli, says: ''The destruction of 
Nineveh is at hand, for I see that its iniquity will bring 
it to destruction." 

Of Babylon, Isaias exclaimed, '*And that Babylon, 
glorious among kingdoms, the famous pride of the 
Chaldeans, shall be even as the Lord destroyed Sodom 
and Gomorrah. It shall no more be inhabited forever, 
and it shall not be founded unto generation and genera- 
tion; neither shall the Arabian pitch his tent there, nor 
shall shepherds rest there. But wild beasts shall rest 
there, and their houses shall be filled with serpents, 
and ostriches shall dwell there, and the hairy ones shall 
dance there, and owls shall answer one another in the 
houses thereof." All history and the unanimous voice 
of modern tourists bear witness to the literal fulfillment 
of these terrible predictions. But, it may be asked, 
why this unparalleled wickedness which so often curses 
the great cities of the earth ? The answer is easy. It 
is here that the very worst elements of society, the 
lewd, debauched and abandoned of all ages and of both 
sexes, mostly congregate; it is here that vice presents 
herself in every conceivable form, in nearly all places 
and at all hours, both day and night; it is here she is 
forever fanning into a flame the very worst passions of the 
human heart. Now she comes in the shape of the tempting 
glass, dragging her victim down into the gutter, or sending 
him home to play the fiend and sow the seeds of crime 
and misery in the bosom of his family. Now you find 
her in the shape of some God-forbidden mammoth 
speculation, where, by means of deceit, lying and fraud, 
an entire community is to be swindled and numberless 
families reduced from opulence to penury and want. 
Sometimes you see her staggering into a police court. 



CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE. 249 

with face bloated, eyes bunged, liair disheveled and 
garments torn, ragged and reeking with filth; then again 
robing herself in gaudy apparel of silks, satins and 
gilded drapery, she moves along the streets with all the 
majesty, ease, grace and beauty of a queen. Then 
again she plays the role of an infuriated mob, rushing 
frantically through the city, bearing in one hand the 
incendiary torch, while with the other she brandishes 
the bloody dagger of the assassin. Sometimes, ** steal- 
ing the livery of heaven to serve the devil in," she 
mounts the pulpit in the shape of some hypocritical 
preacher, who, with a soul befouled with impurity and 
a tongue blistering with perjury, desecrates and defames 
all that is most holy in heaven or on earth, by daring to 
discourse of God and eternity, of law, morality and 
religion. 

Sometimes she makes herself heard in the voice of 
sweet music, luring her victims now up to the theater; 
now down into the rum-cellar, and now into the ball- 
room, where geutlemen and debauchees, gentle maids 
and disguised courtesans, meet on common ground, 
bow, smile, clasp hands, embrace, and twirl round and 
round in the giddy mazes of the lecherous waltz. Al- 
most every occupation in city life is beset with some 
peculiarly powerful temptation. The merchant, in 
order to increase his sales, is tempted to deceive his 
customers as to the quality and value of his goods. 
Being often brought into competition with dishonest 
and lying competitors, he easily persuades himself that 
falsehood and deception are a necessary part of his 
business. So of the mechanic. Having to compete 
with unscrupulous brother mechanics, he is often com- 
pelled to either go without employment, or else accept 



250 CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE. 

contracts at sucli rates as leave him no alternative but 
either to swindle his employers or ruin himself. 

What is true of merchants and mechanics is also 
more or less true of professional men, and those en- 
gaged in other walks of life. If, then, it be true, as the 
poet says, that 

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien. 
That to be hated, needs but to be seen; 
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace. 

We may readily imagine how natural it is for a child 
born and bred in the midst of a great city to embrace 
the vices of that city. 

In cities, popular ideas of right and wrong, virtue and 
vice, beauty and deformity, are too often formed, not 
according to nature's divine standard, but according to 
the perverted tastes of men acting and speaking either 
from motives of interest, passion, or prejudice. With 
rare exceptions, we find but little independence in the 
great cities of the world. The laborer is afraid to be 
independent lest he lose his employment; the trades- 
man fears to be independent, lest he drive away his 
customers; and the hotel-keeper fears to be independent 
for a similar reason. Here almost every man is ex- 
pected to belong to some particular clique, and each 
must think with his clique, speak with his clique, act 
with his clique and vote with his clique, and unless he 
does all this he is kicked overboard as an unworthy 
member of his clique, and becomes the outcast and ac- 
cursed of all cliques. 

But what a refreshing contrast do we find on turning 
our eyes to the country! Here we behold the sturdy 



CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE. 251 

farmer, far removed from the dust and smoke and filtli 
and vice of the city, breathing heaven's pure, fresh air 
as it comes wafted across the broad ocean or sweetened 
by the fragrance of the new-blown flowers of God Al- 
mighty's own garden of the forest. He drinks the pure, 
cold water as it comes gushing down from the dissolv- 
ing snow, or sips the soothing beverage from the "old 
oaken bucket, that iron-bound bucket, that moss-cov- 
ered bucket that hangs by the well." Around him are 
his herds of horses, cows, sheep and swine, his chickens, 
his geese and his ducks ; his fields are yellow with the ripe 
grain; his orchards are laden with rich, rare and luscious 
fruits; his garden is a paradise of flowers, and his home 
an earthly heaven. As he returns from the field to his 
frugal meal, or for his nightly repose, bright, smiling, 
cheerful, healthy faces greet him at the door and bid 
him a cordial welcome, such as a monarch might crave. 
The solitude of the rural home during the absence of 
the husband and father, always renders his return a 
source of unspeakable domestic bliss to the wife and 
children, for whom he has borne the heat and burden 
of the day. His toils in the field give a relish for food, 
which renders the plainest diet more delicious than is 
the rarest and daintiest dish to the idle epicure. At 
night, free from the noise, bustle, confusion and mental 
anxieties of city life, the farmer enjoys to its fullest 
measure the sweet blessing of an unbroken sleep. He 
is neither startled from his slumbers by the rattling of 
drays nor by the oaths, blasphemies and obscenities of 
vile men. He is awakened at early dawn by the sweet, 
inspiring melodies of a thousand birds, whose shrill, 
clear voices ring out upon the morning air in strains of 
thanksgiving to God for the blessed light of another 



252 CITY AND COUNTEY LIFE. 

day. Abandoned, indeed, must be the heart of that man 
wliose tongue coukl blaspheme or refuse to honor the 
name of the Most High, while the very birds are thrill- 
ing the air with the notes of His praise. Every occu- 
pation of the farmer brings him, as it were, face to face 
with his Maker, and teaches him lessons of truth, justice 
and piety. When he plows his ground and sows his 
seed, he relies not upon the slippery promises of men, 
but upon God Himself, to supply the moisture and to 
so temper the atmosphere as to sprout the seed and 
mature the crop. Every flower that blooms, every blade 
of grass that grows, and every insect that crawls, tell 
him of the Avisdom, power, goodness, justice and mercy 
of the Almighty. When he plucks from the tree the 
rich, ripe fruit, as it hangs in tempting clusters around 
the parent stem, how sublime the thought that he re- 
ceives this luscious food direct from God, no mortal 
hand intruding between the Giver and the receiver to 
break the charm which Divinity throws around the pre- 
cious gift. Accustomed as he is to rely upon God and 
his own strong arm for what he eats, drinks and wears, 
he dares to think what is right, and to speak and act as 
he thinks. 



TWO GREAT STONE-FACES. 253 



TWO GKEAT STONE-FACES. 

By "Mrs. Partington" (Benjamin P. Shillaber). 

The fame of " The Great Stoue-Face," or '* Old Man 
of the Mountain," in New Hampshire, lias become so 
widely extended that there is no need nor room for far- 
ther description; yet as another " Great Stone-Face " is 
to be spoken of in connection with this, it may be well 
enough to have a slight sparring with this before attack- 
ing the other. So I will square away at the old profile, 
though it heed me no more than it has the attacks of the 
centuries that have preceded. 

New Hampshire people, from a feeling of local pride, 
contend that it was the "Old Man of the Mountain,'' 
and not the Sphinx, that was meant in the ancient 
conandrum that defined the difference betwixt that and 
Queen Bess: "This was a wonder, but she w'as a Tu- 
dor." And it is a wonder, but, unlike most other nat- 
ural wonders, the first impression of it is best. The 
mountains, the lakes, the cataracts, dwindle before our 
highly-raised expectations, induced by the descriptions 
of those who have studied them and learned to appre- 
ciate them, as tue do after a time; but the "Old M;i.n,''' 
suddenly thrusting his sharply-cut profile from the cliff, 
transfixes one, at the first gkmce, with wonder and awe. 
The effect is heightened if it comes as a surprise. 

I had tarried with a friend overnight at Franconia, 
which gives the name " Franconia Notch " to a passage 
leading betwixt the hills from the west, and in the morn- 
ing, early, we started in a carryall to explore the " con- 
tagious " territory, as Mrs. Partington, of our party, 
termed it. The morning was lovely, the scenery grand, 
and admiration, like Ixion, was attached to the revolv- 



254 TWO GREAT STONE-FACES. 

ing wheel, wliicli bronglit new beauties with every turn. 
The liills rose around us in stupendous majest}-, and 
tho glory of the scenes we passed was duly revealed 
through the clear atmosphere of May, far better than 
the haziness of the after summer. 

After riding a few miles, we entered the *' Notch." 
Above us towered Mount Lafayette, in all particulars 
except height equaling, and in some even surpassing, 
Mount Washington for picturesqueness; and as we 
skirted its base the leader of our party grew suddenly 
very loquacious and persistent in calling attention 
to particular points of interest, allowing us no moment 
to break from his eloquent engrossment. The scars of 
avalanches, the track of land-slides, the thunder-riven 
cliffs, the dark and savage ravines — with tales and tra- 
ditions, pertinent, to curdle the blood or awaken the 
astonishment of the listener — until we forgot that there 
was anything to be seen but the grim old mountain be- 
fore us, when, driving his horse up to a little wooden 
stile by the wayside, he bade us look around and face 
towards the east. This we did, and were favored with 
a rare surprise; for there, just far enough away to ren- 
der it fully effective, with the rising sun behind it — and 
the sun does not have much to do but rise and set 
among the mountains — on the front of a lofty and abrupt 
cliff, was the ''Great Stone-Face," with its earnest, ex- 
pectant gaze, overlooking the long valley which 
stretched away into the distance. We spoke our whis- 
pered comments, vv^ith a half feeling that we might dis- 
turb the august watcher, or silently looked, almost 
dreading lest the Old Man should turn his stony gaze 
on us in rebuke for disturbing his morning meditation. 

The emotion awakened was that of awe, and probably 
the first who discovered the wonderful phenomenon did 



TWO GREAT STONE-FACES. 255 

not feel the sublimity of its presence more than we did 
at this unexpected introduction. Dr. O. W. Holmes 
tried to imagine the feelings of the one who gulped the 
first oyster, in the doubt of inexperience; but that was 
an epicurean experiment. This was a discovery of the 
yisioD, with what effect we may not know. Perhaps the 
discoverer was overwhehned, perhaps not; most likely 
not, if a native of the vicinage, for they appreciate more 
the shadows of the hills, which shorten their crops of 
corn, than they do their beauties, which excite the 
poetic world to frenzy. We greeted the face Avith the 
zest of first discoverers, and but for the trouble of 
climbing the hill, would have planted the discoverers' 
fiag on the Old Man's organ of benevolence. 

But the ''Great Stone-Face," grand and massive as it 
is, is but an illusion, which a reflected sunbeam may 
dispel, revealing an irregular pile of rocks, bearing no 
trace of human resemblance, and removing a rod or 
two, either way, from the necessary standpoint, the 
great wonder becomes but as *'the baseless fabric of a 
vision." The impression it makes, however, is lasting, 
and for many miles the visitor turns, with vain en- 
deavor, to restore the vanished lineaments. 

During a portion of the winter of 1876, I was enjoy- 
ing the hospitality of friends in San Francisco, to whose 
generous and constant kindness I was indebted for 
some of the most memorable and pleasant experiences 
of my life, when a party was made up for a visit to 
Mount Diablo. We accordingly took the steamer, en 
routey for Vallejo, under the inspiration and guidance 
of one whose smiling presence would make even a desert 
cheerful, but who happily led us through scenes of rare 
beauty, " swinging round the circle" comprehending 
all betwixt Mare Island and Benicia, where we embarked 



256 TWO GREAT STONE-FACES. 

for Martinez, across Benicia Bay, in a steamer propelled 
by little more than sewing-machine power, whence 
we were to take our departure for the Diabolical 
mountain. 

It was as fair a morning as the sun ever shone upon 
— characteristic of California in the spring-time of the 
year — when we embarked on our expedition. ''All the 
air was balm," luxuriant vegetation smiled around ns, 
and rare flowers gladdened us with perfume. Broad 
fields of wheat stretched away in ripening fullness, 
graceful oaks at intervals cast their shadows over the 
sward, song-birds greeted us at every step, and, taken 
altogether, each scene we passed seemed one of those 
described by the English divine as so beautiful that a 
change for Paradise were hardly desirable in compari- 
son. Before us, some twenty miles distant, rose the 
majestic mountain which was our destination ; and all 
our way thither reminded us of the "land flowing with 
milk and honey," as we found milk in plenty at the stop- 
ging-places, and the honey was an assumed fact. 

Changing horses at a milk ranch, we entered the 
vestibule of the mountain — a ravine, the beauty and 
grandeur of which it were impossible to describe. Pre- 
cipitous rocks rose on either hand, or gentle slopes 
from retiring hills, profuse of bloom and bright with 
early vegetation, declined gracefully to our path. A 
brook of melted snow, direct from the caverns of Dia- 
blo, continually crossed our way, sparkling in the sun 
like silver. As Orpheus C. Kerr knew he was ''on the 
ascending node because he knowed he was ascending," 
so we were assured as the little stream prattled by us, 
because water never runs up hill, save where the sewer- 
age of cities is legislated to run so, at times, in defiance 
of physical impossibilities. Otherwise, the rise was 



TWO GREAT STONE-FACES. 257 

imperceptible. Small oaks, buckeyes, and a varied 
Tindergrowtli of shrubs fringed our path; while, high 
on the faces of the cliffs, were swinging sprays or bright 
patches of the gorgeous California poppy, flashing in 
her sunlight like burnished gold. We "whiled the 
time along," insensible to everything but that which 
met our delighted eyes, turning our gaze but occasion- 
ally to the summit which we soon hoped to gain, when 
our driver, a transplanted Yankee, prolific of talk, sud- 
denly stopped his train. 

''You've heerd, mebbe," said he, '' of the Old Man 
of the Mounting up in New Hamshur?" 

''Yes," was the general response; and I thought I 
found more favor in his eyes when I assured him that 
I had been introduced to the old "settler." 

"Well," he continued, "you can now hev a chance 
to see which you like best, that one or our ' Old Man.' 
See there!" 

As he spoke he pointed with his whip back over 
the route we had passed; and, following its direction 
with our eyes, we saw high up on the summit of a 
tall, gray ledge, the gigantic figure of an old man, 
clearly defined against the sky, with a bald forehead 
and a heavy, flowing beard, reaching forward as if 
meditating upon some object before him. The back 
of the figure was symmetrically rounded, in exact 
proportion with the head, and a protruding fragment 
of rock at the side bore the contour of a human arm 
reposing. The face bore a tranquil and dignified ex- 
pression, and was as perfect in its lines as if it had 
been chiseled by a Story. The tout ensemhle was so 
human in its expression that it seemed as if some 
Titanic philosopher or scribe had, when Titans were in 

vogue, seated himself there, and been turned into 
17 



258 TWO GREAT STONE-FAGES. 

stone. We gazed and gazed, and ''still tlie wonder 
grew." As we pursued our journe}', we turned back 
to look at it, but the figure retained its form for miles, 
and did not change materially until an abrupt turn in 
tlie road shut it from our view. 

As the object contemplated at the beginning of this 
article has been attained, in thus presenting to mj read- 
ers a description of the two Great Stone-Faces at the 
two extremes of our countr}', I will close with the bare 
mention that the ascent of the mountain was success- 
fully accomplished without accident. The delight ex- 
perienced by all at the view from the summit was 
fully enjoyed by our part}^ which soon returned to a 
fresh contemplation of the Old Man, who still sat with 
his book before him, or, as one suggested, his writing, 
and the question was submitted whether he might not 
be writing a letter to his sturdy old brother in New 
Hampshire, which was eagerly waited for, as was shown 
in the expectant look of the latter. 



CALIFORNIA WAIFS. 259 



CALIFORNIA WAIFS. 

By Eev. Thomas K. Noele. 



A WAIF, according to Blackstone, is a species of goods 
found, whose owner is not known. It was applied orig- 
inally to such articles as a thief, when pursued, threw 
away to prevent being apprehended. In modern usage, 
however, the word has a wider range, and is applied to 
persons as well as things. Whoever is an estray, what- 
ever has been waived or forsaken, is now designated as 
a waif. Here in California we have an extraordinary 
number of boys and girls whose status is very accu- 
rately described by this word waif. In the literal sense 
of the word they are '^estrays." From one cause or 
another their claims for support and protection have 
been ''waived" by those to whom they owe their being. 
Under the old English law, the waif was the property 
of the King. Under the unwritten law of American so- 
ciety, the waif is the property of nobody. Nobody is 
responsible for him; nobody is particularly interested 
in him. And yet it will never do to suffer this property 
to lie neglected. For of the wonderful products of 
our wonderful State, the most wonderful of all is the 
California waif. 

Like Melchisedec, the mystic king of Salem, he is 
"without father, without mother," "a native product 
of the Golden West." Like the Carpenter of Nazareth, 
he begins life in a stable or hovel, and as the years go 
by, while "the foxes have holes and the birds of the air 
have nests," he has, very frequently, "not where to lay 
his head." Like the gamin of Yictor Hugo, "he has 
no shirt to his back, no shoes to his feet; ranges the 
streets, fishes in the sewers, hunts in the drain, extracts 



260 CALIFORNIA WAIFS. 

gajety from filtli, tempers hallelujah with tura-lural, 
finds without searching, knows what he does not know; 
is Spartan even to roguery; is witless even to wisdom, 
is lyric even to impurity; would squat upon Olympus, 
wallows in the dung-heap, and comes out of it covered 
with stars." Like the historic miller, "he cares for 
nobody and nobody cares for him." And yet in the 
unfolding life of this bright, keen, quick-witted, auda- 
cious and irreverent little waif there are immense possi- 
bilities. 

The rough block of marble can be fashioned into the 
form of an angel or a fiend, and in this rough specimen 
of California humanity there is material for either a he- 
roic man or a colossal villain. If he is to become the 
former, and not the latter, he must have, at the hands 
of somebody, two things: First, he must be cared for; 
not in that official, meddlesome and fussy way which 
only irritates and exasperates the boy of any spirit; on 
the contrary, the care that is really to help him must be 
unobtrusive, undemonstrative, and at the same time 
wisely authoritative. It must environ him like the 
atmosphere; but, like the atmosphere, its pressure 
must be unnoticed. It must also be an intelligent 
care — a wise oversight, that shall have regard to 
individual idiosyncrasies and personal peculiarities; 
which shall make allowance for infirmities of dispo- 
sition, take cognizance of the needs growing out of 
unfavorable and unfriendly surroundings, and have 
the wisdom to discern that in the realm of character, 
not less than in that of nature, there is room for infinite 
diversity. It is not the will of our Father in heaven 
that His children should all be run in one mould or con- 
form to one rule. And while this care must be authori- 
tative and unobtrusive, sagaciously intelligent and gen- 



CALIFOENIA WAIFS. 261 

uinely sympathetic, it must also be luminous with the 
sweet grace of patience; not the poor caricature which 
sometimes passes for patience; the limp, nerveless, 
forceless sentiment that droops, and wilts, and weeps, 
and waits, and is indolently resigned to the wrong 
things in life which a little energy would set right; but 
the patience which the great dramatist has character- 
ized as *'the king-becoming grace;" the patience that 
has grip, and pluck, and fortitude, and resolute en- 
deavor, and which determines in calm constancy and 
with indomitable volition, that, come what may, the 
victory over evil shall assuredly be won; the patience 
which constrained the saintly mother of John Newton 
to say to her husband, in response to his question, 
*'Why will you tell that boy the same thing twenty 
times over?" — ^'Because, my dear, nineteen times is not 
enough." 

This, now, is the primal need — wise, firm, tender, 
unobtrusive and indefatigably patient care. It is not, 
however, the sole need. If the forces wrapped up under 
his compacted and closely-knit frame are to find fitting 
expression, there is something else to be done. He 
must be trained as w^ell as cared for; disciplined as well 
as watched over. The old masters were wont to repre- 
sent Youth as a figure with the eyes veiled, the right 
hand bound behind the back, the left hand at liberty, 
while Time, following close at his heels, was ever and 
anon plucking a thread out of the veil. The reason of 
this representation is not hard to find. The right hand 
was bound behind the back, while the left remained at 
liberty, to indicate that, in a state of nature, he would 
do nothing right, but all things awkwardly or imper- 
fectly. He was pictured as blind, as a sign and token 
that he had no eyes for his own failings and defects and 



262 CALIFOENIA WAIFS. 

youthful irregularities. And lie was followed by Time, 
to show how, little by little, his eyes would be opened, 
and he would come to acknowledge his weakness and 
his wants. The work of Time in this representation of 
the ancients, may be looked upon as a kind of object 
lesson, of what is to be done for the California waif. 
Little by little the threads of crudeness, coarseness, 
canity, selfishness and irreverence, inwoven in the veil 
which hides the real gold imbedded in his nature, must 
be patiently plucked out. And when this is done, and 
his eyes are unveiled, and he comes to see the immature 
and undisciplined condition of all his faculties and 
forces, then he is ready for that added form of culture 
which the Bible calls '^ training." ''Train up a child," 
says our Scripture, ''in the way he should go, and when 
he is old he will not depart from it." If it be asked to 
what ends this training shall be directed, and along 
what lines it must lie, the answer is, it must have re- 
spect to health and vigor of body, strength and beauty 
of mind, purity and peace of soul. It must lie along 
the lines of industry, honesty, courage, honor, truth- 
speaking, reverence, and habits of unselfishness and 
mercy. Give to the California waif a care and a train- 
ing like this, and in the near future, instead of "hood- 
lums," we shall have heroes, men who will make this 
fair land of sunshine and gold blossom like the "garden 
of the Lord." 



KEAL CHINA. 263 



KEAL CHINA. 

By Frederick Law Olmsted. 

In early life, I once lived for four months on a vessel 
lying at anchor near the mouth of the Great South 
river of China. The Opium war had just ended, and 
British frigates, which had brought desolation and bit- 
ter poverty to many a poor household in the vicinity, 
were moored near us. 

It was to be presumed that the traditional antipathy 
of the people to foreigners had been greatly exasperated, 
and when we first began to go on shore we were cau- 
tioned that we could not be too careful to avoid offend- 
ing their prejudices; not to go far from our boats, and 
to keep together for common defense in case of neces- 
sity. Some English merchant-seamen, it was said, had 
been roughly handled, and one who had strayed away, 
having never reappeared, was supposed to have been 
murdered. 

From the first, however, such warnings were little re- 
garded by my shipmates, some of whom were rough and 
reckless men, such as sober, quiet people anywhere in 
the world are shy of. Some, too, would at times be the 
worse for liquor; heedless, boisterous and quarrelsome. 

Once, a man in this condition lurched against a woman 
who was carrying a child on one arm and an earthen 
jar on the other, striking her with his elbow in such a 
way that to save herself from falliug, she had to drop 
the jar. As I saw the jar drop, I thought that he had 
knocked it out of her hand, and it looked as if he might 
have struck her. There was a little outcry, and some- 
thing like a mob at once gathered about us, looking at 
us menacingly, but the woman apparently explained 



264 REAL CHINA. 

that she thought there had' been no wrong intention, 
the rest of us expressed our regret, and in a few mo- 
ments there was a general bowing and smiling, and a 
way was opened for us to go on. 

As a rule, at all the Tillages, and even at lone farm- 
houses, where the people had been accustomed to see 
foreigners, we were allowed to wander freely, and were 
treated with a degree of charitable civility, that, in view 
of all the circumstances, seems to me now quite wonder- 
ful. We roved wherever inclination led us, hardly ever 
saying *' by your leave," but taking that for granted; 
much as I have since seen a band of saucy Comanches do 
in a Mexican border village. Thus we made our way, 
often interrupting men and women at their work, into 
shops and factories, boat-builders' yards and potteries, 
gardens, cemeteries and houses of worship; even into 
private houses, seldom receiving the rebuffs or rebukes 
which I am sure that we deserved, often invited and as- 
sisted to gratify our curiosity. 

This good-natured disposition was, as far as I can re- 
member, universal. We met, to be sure, few but the 
poor and lowly, yet we occasionally encountered some 
of the more fortunate classes. Once, for example, we 
had alongside of our ship an elegant yacht in which a 
wealthy merchant had come to deal for some part of 
our cargo. After quitting work in the afternoon, I went 
to the gangway of this singular craft, which was much 
like those described by Marco Polo in the sixteenth 
century, and by lifting my eyebrows toward one of the 
crew, asked if I could come on board. The man stepped 
into the cabin and returned with a well-dressed young 
fellow, perhaps the owner's son, who at once offered his 
hand to assist me in stepping down on board, and then 
extended it as an invitation toward the cabin, into which 



EEAL CHINA. 265 

lie followed me. The cabin was ricli with carvings, and 
contained some pretty furniture of black wood inlaid 
with ivory and mother-of-pearl, and a number of mu- 
sical instruments. All these were shown to me in a 
pleasant way. In a corner there were two gentlemen 
over a table, playing chess, I think. When we came 
near them they bowed and smiled, and the servant at 
this moment bringing in the tea-things, which were 
placed upon another table, they rose, and one of them 
handed me a cup of tea. Delicious it was; they each 
took a cup of it with me, then offered me cigarettes, and 
finally waited on me to the gangway, and bowed me 
over the side with perfectly grave suavity. 

If I had been a full-blown admiral ina '* brass coat," 
greater respect could hardly have been paid to me. I 
was, in fact, a very insignificant working-man in my 
shirt-sleeves. I am not sure that I was wearing any 
shoes, and I much doubt if my hands were free from the 
slush and tar of the rigging, in the repair of which I 
had just before been engaged. 

On another occasion, I boarded an armed Chinese 
vessel, said to be the floating quarters of a mandarin or 
high officer, and met with even warmer hospitality; 
dishes of stewed meat, rice, fruit, and a little cup of 
spirits being set before me, as well as tea and tobacco. 

Once when on shore, hearing a hum like that of an 
infant school, I looked in at the open window of the 
house from which it came, and saw an elderly man, 
with great spectacles, teaching about twenty little boys. 
As soon as he observed me, he laid down his book, 
came forward, and throwing open a door, invited me to 
enter, and then proceeded with great cleverness, by 
gesture and example, to show me how he taught the 
boys to read. 



266 REAL CHINA. 

Following some other sailors at a little distance, I 
once entered a building wliich, though no idols were to 
be seen, I took to be a place of worship of some sort. 
It was dark, and, overhead and in a recess on the right 
and left, rafters, wainscot and tile were to be dimly 
made out through a thin veil of smoke. A table or 
altar stood opposite the door, upon which joss-sticks 
were burning. There were numerous inscriptions on 
the walls and on paper and silk lanterns; banners and 
flags hung from them and from the ceiling. There were 
also several c^uaint bells and gongs. The sailors had 
made their way through a little crowd of Chinese who 
stood before the altar, and some of them had gone be- 
hind it and were lifting the banners and shaking the 
lanterns; others were striking the bells and gongs with 
their fists and knives. As I stood, peering in at the door 
and gradually making out what I have described, a 
sailor called out tome, with an oath, ''What are you 
keeping your hat off for in a heathen temple?" Pres- 
ently, as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, I 
saw an old gentleman observing me from a side-door. 
As our eyes met he bowed, and directly came forward, 
and beckoning me to follow him, led the way into a 
little room, where there were piles of books and manu- 
scripts. He laid open one of them, which appeared 
very ancient, and showed me that it contained plans of 
the building, and tried, in a gentle, patient way, to 
make me understand something of its origin and pur- 
poses. He could use a very few words of Pigeon-Eng- 
lish, and, rightly or wrongly, I made out that the object 
of the structure was to keep the memory green and 
j)reserve the sayings of some good man who lived many 
generations ago. Afterwards the old gentleman took 
me through the main room, calling my attention to the 



EEAL CHINA. 267 

decorations of the bells and other things which he 
thought admirable, and when I left, he gave me several 
printed papers, which I presumed to be religious tracts. 
It was only when we pulled up some of the creeks or 
bayous to a distance from the fleet, where the people had 
had no direct dealings with foreigners, and knew them 
only as rapacious enemies, that we were met with any- 
thing but kindness and hospitality. These were holiday 
excursions. Leaving our boat in charge of a hand or 
two, Ave would be makiug our way along the dykes of 
the rice-fields toward a pagoda, burying-ground or vil- 
lage, when we would hear a shrill cry, soon repeated 
by other voices, a,nd presently see boys running to- 
gether and shouting in concert a phrase which, it was 
understood among us, was equivalent to *' Here come 
the heathen!" It seemed to be a make-believe rather 
than a real alarm. People near by would look up as 
they heard the cry and regard us curiously; idlers, per- 
haps, would smile; women would pick up their children 
and draw back out of our way; but nobody stopped 
work or looked at all threateningly, except the vaga- 
bondish boys, and they seemed more disposed to make 
fun of us than to injure or repel ns. Sometimes as 
these gained boldness with numbers, they would menace 
us with stones and potsherds and pelt us with balls of 
mud. But though we heard that some other sailors had 
been driven into a miry place, out of which they 
escaped with difficulty, I doubt if it had not been after 
some aggravated provocation. 

Once, when we were fatigued and dry, while one of 
these little mobs was hanging upon and jeering us, we 
saw a boy who was carrying a pot of water. By motions 
we made him understand that we would pay for a drink 
from it. After a little while a bolder boy took the pot, and 



268 BEAL CHINA. 

bringing it near to us, set it upon the ground, and with 
a laugh ran away. After we had satisfied ourselves, we 
laid some *'cash" by the side of it, and drew back, 
whereupon the same boy, a ragged, half-starved Chi- 
nese urchin, took the jar and kicked the money toward 
us, laughing again and shaking his head. 

We had a man known as Sam, attached to our ship 
while she lay in the river, who ran errands with a small 
shore-boat for the captain, acted as our interpreter, and 
m.ade himself useful in any way he could, either in the 
cabin or on deck. He was a willing and skillful servant, 
and the captain tried to engage him to go to America 
with us. At last, our steward falling ill, the captain 
offered Sam very high wages, double as much as he had 
proposed to pay at first. He persistently declined, 
and told me that if the captain doubled his offer again 
he would not go. I remonstrated with him, for we 
would all have liked him as a shipmate, when he ex- 
plained that he was the only son of an aged man, and 
that it would therefore be infamous for him to go away 
from home. If his father did not need his care, he 
would have jumped at the captain's offer. 

T had made a friendly acquaintance with a merchant's 
clerk by giving him some lessons in the English alpha- 
bet. Shortly before we went to sea, he came on board 
and remarked to me that when Chinamen ventured upon 
the ocean they set up a joss in their cabin, before which, 
from time to time, they set cups of tea and burned joss- 
sticks and paper-prayers. He did not see any joss in 
our cabin, and he asked me if I would not be more 
comfortable, when a great storm arose, if such a recog- 
nition of our dependence upon the good-will of a Supe- 
rior Being had been observed. It was a simple, friendly 
inquiry, made in a perfectly well-bred manner. 



A WOED OF ADVICE. 269 

I suppose that civilization is to be tested as mucli by 
civility as auytliing else, and I have recalled these inci- 
dents as illustrations of a personal experience which 
made a strong impression upon me, tending to a higher 
estimate of the social condition of the masses of the 
Chinese people than, I think, generally prevails. 



A WOED OF ADVICE. 

By General W:m. T. Sheri^iax, U.S.A. 

■^ ^ ^ I bear in high honor all men who devote 
themselves to the cause of education, more especially of 
that class of boys and girls who appeal to the charitable 
consideration of the more favored. ^ ^^ ^ 

Mine has been a career not likely to be followed by 
any; and my thoughts and feelings have been so en- 
grossed by public events which are not likely to be re- 
peated, that no single sentiment is uppermost in my 
thoughts. The world is far from being finished, and 
the clearest mind can penetrate but a little way into the 
future. The career of the highest or lowest is like the 
voyage of a ship upon an unknown sea. No one knows 
the port of destination or the exact path he must tread, 
but he can carry in his mind a compass, as true as the 
needle to the pole, that will surely be safe : an honest, 
manly purpose, sustained by pure morals. These do not 
change. They were the same in the beginning, are now, 
and ever will be. 

If you can carry out into the world a knowledge that 
labor of the hand and head is honorable; that truth and 
fidelity, amidst temptation, always prevail in the end; 
and that although brilliant talents may shine for a time, 
success always rewards the industrious and patient, your 
task will be measurably complete. 



270 THE COT BY THE HILL. 

THE COT BY THE HILL. 

By Frank Soule. 

When memory turns to the old pleasant places 

Whose scenes could my heart with ]Dure happiness fill, 
I see, fresh and smiling, the same dear old faces 

I loved in my childhood and youth, and love still. 
And there by the maples, the oaks and the beeches. 

Whose leaves in the fresh breezes flutter and trill, 
The house by the wild wood, the home of my childhood, 

The little old cottage sits under the hill. 

Again it seems peopled with those who have died there, 

And those whose fresh youth talked with voluble tongue. 
Alive and still joyous as those who abide there, 

Serene the mature, and o'erjoyous the young. 
Grown rough with Time's losses, and spotted with mosses, 

There stands the old homestead, hospitable still; 
Old-fashioned and hoary, old house of one story, 

The home of my childhood, that sits by the hilL 

The world hath its palaces, costly and royal. 

In gorgeousness planned, and embellished by art. 
Yet to that old house is my love ever loyal. 

And dearer that home of my youth to my heart; 
For there in their beauty dwelt love, joy and duty, 

And there in my fancy I see living still 
The father who blessed me, and one who caressed me. 

My mother, who lived in that cot by the hill. 

That old house remains, but the faces have faded. 

Like beautiful stars from their places on high, 
When heaven's blue vault by the clouds are invaded; 

These live in my heart, as those dwell in the sky: 
The father and mother, the sister and brother, 

All gone! but they live in my memory still; 
And often I meet them in dreaming, and greet them 

As in the old days in that cot by the hill. 



HOW DO WE LEARN OUR LIFE? 271 

Ah me! but afar away thence have I wandered! 

A continent thrusts up its rough ribs between; 
In search of the beautiful, life have I squandered, 

Neglecting the present to seek the unseen. 
But weary the yearning, and dreary life's urning, 

And sadly I think of the old cottage still. 
The fond ones who smiled there, the love that beguiled there, 

And changed to a palace that cot by the hill. 



HOW DO WE LEAEN OUE LIFE ? 

By Charles A. Sumner. 

How do we learn our life ? How read the page, 

As Time's hard finger throws it o'er? 
With what reflections do we grow in age. 

And near the sands of th' inevitable shore? 

Full soon we find that heaven has well decreed 

To every man his own peculiar fate : 
With following hours contrasting thought and deed, 

With years all barren, and with moments great. 

Full soon we read a law of equal birth. 

To which, without incongruous act, we give 

A holier homage in the scenes of earth: — 
Unto himself no man can truly live. 

A thousand times the precious truth we hear; 

Still from our practice it remains concealed; — 
Till blessed sorrow makes our w^ants appear. 

And all adapted uses are revealed. 



272 KOPHINS' BOY. 

KOPHINS' BOY. 

By Donn Piatt. 

KoPHiNs' boy came under that style of architecture 
known to humanity as the Gothic, His front and rear 
elevation presented the same eccentricity of construc- 
tion that marked the order born of barbarism in the 
dark ages. They had the pointed arches, slender sup- 
ports, flying buttresses and profusion of pinnacles, with- 
out, however, the grace that made the Gothic so ac- 
ceptable to the religious mind of Europe. Kopkins' 
boy was light and eccentric in design, but not graceful. 
Indeed, cultured people were wont to express disgust 
at the lack of grace Kophins' boy exhibited in his con- 
struction. 

Kophins, the proprietor of this youth, was an under- 
taker, and dealt in ready-made inclosures for the 
remains of the departed . An old and somewhat dimmed 
gilt sign upon the glass doors informed surviving 
friends and relatives that the establishment was open at 
all hours. That so useful, moral and high-toned a 
concern might not be mistaken for a saloon, where 
thirsty mortals found refreshment, — also open at all 
hours — or an apothecary's establishment, 
''Full of deleterious med'cines, 
All of whom partook are dead since,'* 

that carries upon its front a like statement, — Kophins' 
bay-window exhibited a baby's casket of such rare fin- 
ish and furnish that it really looked inviting. The cas- 
ket was bronze, lined with white satin; and if mothers, 
passing, got one glance and, shuddering, hurried by, 
such fact only illustrated that absence of taste which 
finds such frequent expressions of admiration for hand- 
some corpses indulged in by old ladies at funerals. 



KOPHINS' BOY. 273 

It was one of the duties imposed on Kopliins' boy to 
look after tlie cleaning and polishing of this show-case 
for an infant, that Kophins himself gazed upon with 
untiring admiration. It was the undertaker's firm be- 
lief that such a delicate and inviting receptacle robbed 
death of all its terrors. ''It's a sweet thing," Kophins 
would say, '* and I don't believe there is a right-minded 
parent, leastwise one of any sense, but would feel re- 
lieved to see his or her offspring reposing in such a 
casket as that." 

It is seldom that we open our minds to the deeper 
and more hidden recesses in the expression of opinions 
on very great subjects; otherwise Kophins would have 
startled his hearers with the assertion that this last 
touch of art in the direction of burials, created a feeling 
of envy in the heart of many a poor parent, who would 
be tempted to an overdose of Mrs. Winslow's soothing 
syrup, that the darling might be laid out in just such a 
gem of a coffin. 

This, however, was not Kophins' boy's only duty. 
Mr. Kophins was an undertaker who dealt in ready-made 
coffins, suitable to all ages and, sizes, and as we have 
said, was open at all hours. That is, Kophins was open 
to orders, his shop to customers, and his coffins to 
corpses. To make this arrangement available, it was not 
only necessary to have a handsome assortment of coffins, 
an establishment with glass doors and a sign, but some 
one on the watch all the time to answer any unexpected 
summons. And herein was the gravest duty of the 
Gothic youth. He slept in an old coffin under the 
counter, with his nose within a foot of the brass alarm, 
that had a knob on the outside marked *' night-bell." 

That such summons were common the Gothic youth 
could testify. He was not a young man of a philosoph- 
18 



274 KOPHINS' BOY. 

ical turn of mind, but long experience had taught him 
that his first sweet sleep of night would be seldom 
broken. It was generally after midnight, and more 
frequently between two A. M. and dajdight, that the 
dreadful bell would terminate his slumbers, and he 
would receive summons for his master to measure the 
remains of some one in whose body warmth lingered 
after death, as twilight deepens into night after sunset. 

Kophins' boy attributed this aggravating fact to the 
total depravity of human nature, which selected the 
most exasperating hour to die. ^'Dern it," he would 
exclaim, *' why can't they wait till a feller has his break- 
fast and is ready for 'em ?" Kophins' boy actually felt 
aggrieved that the dying was not done during business 
hours, say between nine A. M. and three p. M., when 
bankers, brokers, lawyers, and the better class of com- 
mercial minds attend to their several avocations. 

We said our Gothic creation was not of a philosoph- 
ical turn. He could not grapple with and grasp a fact, 
and then get at the reason for the same. He only got 
the fact. He knew that if the bell was rung before 
midnight, and after dark, it meant an accident, a casu- 
alty; if subsequently, it meant that some man, woman, or 
child had hung on until everybody w^as tired out, and 
then died. 

He did not know of the ebb and fiow of life's tide 
that goes on in the tw^enty-four hours, and that after 
midnight, along towards two in the morning, vitality is 
at its lowest, and the sick one, whose hold on life has 
come to be w^eaker and weaker, suddenly slips cable — 
we really do not know what that means, but it sounds 
all right — and floats out into eternity. 

Byron has said, in language more expressive than 
polite, that the talk of a troubled conscience in the 



KOPHINS' BOY. 275 

hours of the night is all twaddle, and that it is in the 
morniDg that that troublesome article wakens to worry 
its possessor. Kophins' boy had not lived a busy life, 
amid scheming men and beautiful Avomen. He had no 
knowledge, therefore, of that night-bell which about 
two in the morning wakes one to consciousness, to stare 
into the blank night, when the devil sits upon one's 
foot-board, as if it were the foot-stone to one's grave, 
and, with malicious grins, passes all one's sins and fol- 
lies in vivid review. 

Kophins' boy was not given to mental gymnastics of 
any sort. He only knew that his hunger, like the shop, 
was open at all hours, and that he was wretchedly clad 
in the undertaker's old clothes, and overworked. He 
had not a wide circle of friends . He had no friends he 
knew of, and his limited number of acquaintances re- 
garded him as dirty and disagreeable. It was a com- 
mon remark, made by the few who did notice him, that 
if Kophins advertised ready-made skeletons to fill his 
coffins, he would have one, at least, to begin with. The 
poor fellow, as we have said, was in a perpetual state 
of hunger, and when not running errands, carrying bills, 
or cleaning show coffins, had an unhappy way of gnaw- 
ing his knuckles, as if tempted to eat himself. As his 
hands were dirty, the neighbors gauged his appetite by 
the uninviting appearance of the attempted meal. 

Had one inspected the poor boy a little closer, which 
no one was tempted to do, such observer would have 
noted that in his construction Kophins' apprentice was 
not all Gothic. His intellect, or that part of the body 
supposed to hold that precious possession, was covered 
with a dome. His long, thin, cadaverous face sat under 
an unnaturally large, round skull. This gave to his 
deep-set, dreamy sort of eyes a grotesque expression of 



276 KOPHINS' BOY. 

intelligence, sucli as one notes in Dion Boucicault, the 
Shakesperean adapter and scene-shifter of his age. We 
call attention to this, that we may make probable the 
adventure that befell the night-watch of the coffin 
maker we are about to narrate. 

One dismal November night, Kophins' boy closed the 
front door of the establishment, locked the same, low- 
ered the gas above the beautiful coffin for the ideal 
baby, and prepared for his night's repose. At least, he 
prepared for as much of it as the usual mortality of 
Kophins' customers would permit. The poor boy felt 
that some exasperating specimen of dying humanity was 
clinging to life until he, the guardian of its last tene- 
ment, should be passing from the heavy sleep of night 
to that lighter and pleasanter condition of rest, and 
then suddenly drop off, for his (the boy's) especial an- 
noyance. 

The night was one of storm. The rain fell heavily, 
and the wind blew it in dashes against the sashed doors 
and bay-window, where it ran down in drops, as if all 
the tears yet to be shed over the coffins yet to be filled 
had been furnished in advance. To make this supposi- 
tion the more perfect, the wind sighed, and moaned, 
and shrieked, as if all the surviving friends and relatives 
had united in one unanimous howl of lamentation. 

The Gothic youth of a night-watch over the husks of 
dead humanity pulled the old coffin, that served as his 
bedstead, from its hidden recess, and then gave the 
straw pillow and hard mattress some vicious punches. 
This bed-making ended, he divested his pedal extremi- 
ties of a pair of heavy shoes, and contemplated his toes, 
that protruded from the coarse woolen socks in a way 
that indicated their wear to be more of a formality than 
a comfort. Then he threw off his coat, which he folded 



KOPHINS' BOY. 277 

and placed under his pillow. He went no further in 
his preparation for bed, but rolling into his strange 
couch, sat up, after reaching in under and fetching out 
a piece of stale bread and a dried herring, that he pro- 
ceeded to eat with evident relish. 

The old coffin he used as a couch had been hurriedly 
put together for a stout official, a Mason, who went off 
through the favor of apoplexy, leaving nearly three 
hundred pounds of adipose matter to bury. The heirs 
ordered the coffin, and the order was of so economical 
a nature that the box was rejected by the Masonic 
Lodge, that rightly concluded that their imposing cere- 
monies would be marred by such an exhibit. It was 
no bad couch, then, if one could get over the preju- 
dices its nature created. 

We are all the creatures of habit. Does not Sara 
Bernhard keep in her aristocratic apartment a gorgeous 
crimson-lined coffin, designed by herself, in which her 
thin body and strange genius shall one day be shut out 
from the love and admiration of French humanity? 
" No need of such reminder to me," the Rachel of the 
English-speaking stage, Clara Morris, can say, for she 
looks death himself in the face all the time, sleeping or 
awake. 

Kophins' boy not only grew to like his bed that was 
so comfortably lined, but he soon came to regard with 
indifference the rows of coffins ranged in an upright 
position along the walls and on the shelves of the estab- 
lishment. On this night he munched his frugal repast, 
listening to the storm without, as comfortably quiet as 
one would sup at John Chamberlain's. 

Either the pattering of the rain, the sighing of the 
wind, or the heavy condition of the atmosphere, made 
the Gothic watch of seventeen unusually sleepy. He 



278 KOPHINS' BOY. 

could scarcely keep awake long enough to crowd down 
the last morsel of bread and fish. He had just folded 
the drapery of his couch about him, and lapsed into sleep, 
when he dreamed some other than himself was present. 
He saw emerging from a gloomy corner, that the night- 
gas did not reach, a man, who feebly and slowly walked 
along the line of coffins, as if giving them a careful in- 
spection. Strange as it seemed, this extraordinary 
spectacle did not startle the boy in the least. "Here 
is a cuss," he thought, "lookin' up his own coffin;" and 
it did not strike him that this was at all strange. At 
last the man passed before one, and muttering, "This 
will do," stepped in, and, folding his thin, white hands 
upon his breast, composed himself for that sleep which 
knows no waking. 

"Well, he ain't particular," thought the boy, as he 
observed the cheap sort of coffin selected. 

The thought had scarcely passed his mind ere he 
saw, from the same gloomy recess, a w^oman emerge, 
who also inspected the coffins as if in search of her own. 
She had wide, staring eyes, and unlike her predecessor, 
instead of going direct to her coffin, she hesitated, and 
paused, and moaned, and turned to look back, with a 
longing expression on her white, cadaverous face that 
was very pitiful, indeed. The boy recognized her as 
a woman who lived in the neighborhood. She at last 
selected her burial case, and, after wringing her poor 
hands in much grief, arranged herself in a seemly way 
to sleep. 

After came an old man. He hobbled along painfully, 
and not only groaned, but used profane language. The 
infirmities of age, and the pain from disease made him 
petulant. The boy knew this one also. He was old 
Bullion, said to be worth millions, and who through 



KOPHINS' BOY. 279 

life had been accustomed to please himself, and now he 
was hard to please. He Avould try first one coffin and 
then another, and from each he would suddenly emerge, 
and in a thin, querulous voice, cry out: ''Ugh." At 
last, apparently from sheer exhaustion, he stumbled into 
one, and ceased his grumbliugs forever. 

After appeared the shadow of a girl. She was tall 
enough to be sixteen, but oh! she was so slender, and 
she w^as so feeble. There was no selection on her part. 
She hurried into the nearest coffin, crossed her poor 
hands and closed her weary eyes, as if it were such a 
relief to rest. 

Then came a horrible spectacle. At least it was a 
horrible thing to remember, but Kophins' boy did not 
start nor shudder at the sight of a man covered with 
blood from a wound in the breast. He was one in 
the prime of life, if we may use such an expression 
here, but his face carried an expression of agony and 
despair that was terrible to look upon. He then threw 
himself into the first coffin he gained, and clutching his 
bloody hands above his bloody breast, said: 

" I made short work of that, by ." 

The noise of his violent exit died away, and Kophins' 
boy saw a little four-year old, with glossy ringlets and 
bright, brown eyes, steal noiselessly along, and through 
some strange agency that did not strike the boy as 
strange, was lifted into one of the caskets, satin-lined, 
prepared for children. The little thing smiled gently 
as its pretty hands fell npon its breast, and it too sank 
into sleep. 

Then appeared an old lady, who pausing, looked back 
and beckoned, and from the gloom came an old, white- 
haired man, who seemed striving to overtake the woman 
who beckoned him; but she gained her coffin first, and 



280 KOPHINS' BOY. 

had closed lier eyes ere he had settled himself in the 
one next hers. 

Then appeared children — some were babies, and some 
were quite grown — some wailed and moaned; others 
went smiling to their narrow homes. 

And then more men and more women entered, until 
all the readj-made coffins were filled, and yet others 
appeared, and for the first time Kophins' boy won- 
dered. Up to this time he had taken it all as a matter of 
course; now he wondered what his master would do for 
more ready-made coffins. At last they gathered about 
that in which slept the boy, and gazed at him as if he 
were in the way. He did not respond to their ugly 
glances, and a rough, brutal-looking man stepped for- 
ward and said: 

'* I was hanged to-day. The county owes me a coffin; 
get out of that." 

As the boy did not move, the ruffian seized him by 
the shoulder, and shaking it violently, cried out: 

'*' You whelp, are jon going to sleep here all day?" 
It was the voice of his master; and the apprentice, 
opening his eyes, saw that angry man pointing to the 
bright sunlight that glared in at the windows. 



ON THE NILE. 281 

ON THE NILE. 

By Charles Waeueist Stoddard. 

I WAS heading for Nubia; I floated between shadowy 
shores dotted with slumbering villages; mysterious 
forms passed noiselessly to and fro; sometimes the 
moon hung low among the desert hills as a caravan 
crept down before it — pilgrims journeying from star to 
star over the trackless sand. 

I was comparatively alone in a lonely land; a memory 
of good times among the bazaars of Grand Cairo only 
aggravated the solitude. What could we do when the 
night deepened but tie up under the shore and sleep ? 
But one evening, before sleep came, I wandered apart 
and threaded a palm-grove by the river; that night, in 
my journal, I ''dropped into poetry" in the old way, 
and the following lines, together with an armful of tro- 
phies of travel, are about all I have kept by me to assure 
me that Egypt is a reality and not a mere romance ! 

FOR A SIGN. 

Loafing along the Nile-bank, 

As lonesome as I could be. 
The twilight deepened among the palms, 

And the river spread like a sea. 

I heard the cry of the night-bird, 

Its peevish and pitiful cry; 
The barges opened their great white wings, 

And silently drifted by. 

The soft air breathed upon me, 

And marvelous music it bore; 
'T was the mellow trill of the rustic flutes, 

Blown oif from the other shore. 



282 ON TEE NILE. 

Looking across the water, 
I laughed aloud in my glee; 

For out of the lap of the purple West 
A young star winked at me : 

A young, fair star, and lonely, 

That seemed to wink and to smile, 

And to fish for me with a golden thread 
Dropped into the mighty Nile. 

And I said to myself that moment^ 
As I watched its column of light, 

I will never feel lost in the desert again, 
With this pillar of fire by night! 



■^ -5^ -^ In view of the fact that once I was a poor, 
struggling boy, with no one but myself to help gain a 
foothold for the future, I feel a sympathy for all boys 
and girls who are in the thorny field of poverty and des- 
titution. When I can push away from my desk some of 
the orders and demands thereon for my time, I shall 
write an article and send it to you, in the hope that 
there may be something in it that will perhaps serve as 
a ladder, by which those who are in distress and poverty 
can mount up to higher and better conditions of useful- 
ness. In that article I shall attempt no oratory nor 
flights of poetic fancy, but will talk or write to the little 
ones directly from the heart and the experiences of life. 

With best wishes, and the trust that your very laud- 
able enterprise will result largely to the benefit of those 
whose cause you have espoused, I am, 

Very truly, thine for the right, 

M. M. ("Brick") Pomeroy. 



CHARLES CARROLL, OF CARROLLTON. 283 



CHAELES CAEROLL, OF CAEEOLLTON. 

By Rev. Dr. Matthew Hale Smith. 

The Colonies, which swelled into the thirteen States, 
had a peculiar origin. The men who made the settle- 
ments were religious men, seeking a place for free and 
unrestricted worship. The Pilgrims, mainly Congre- 
gationalists, settled in New England. The Dutch 
Church settled New York. The Presbyterians located 
in New Jersey. The Friends purchased Pennsylvania 
of the Indians. The Catholics located in Maryland. 
The Episcopalians erected their altar in Yirginia. The 
Baptists took the Carolinas. The Methodists were the 
foremost sect in Georgia. These people brought with 
them the elements of civilization. They had their 
homes, their institutions of learning, their church pol- 
ity and their clergy. The patriots, representing these 
different sects, struck hands for the cause of national 
independence; in the cause in which they embarked, 
they pledged to one another their '* lives, their fortunes, 
and their sacred honor." This pledge was hallowed by 
Divine service. 

On the opening of the first Congress, a minister of 
the Church of England officiated. The lessons of the 
day were read, which were so singularly appropriate 
that many thought they were selected for the occasion. 
The entire Congress, after its own forms of worship, 
assumed the attitude of prayer. The Puritans stood. 
The Friends added to the erect position the wearing of 
the hat. The Dutch and the Presbyterians bowed, re- 
taining the sitting posture. The Catholics, the Episco- 
palians and the Methodists kneeled. 

Each of the Colonies sent representative men to the 



284 CHARLES CARROLL, OF CARROLLTON. 

Continental Congress. Each had a peculiarity of his 
own. Some had dash and heroism; some were distin- 
guished for great boldness; others for fervid oratory, or 
vehement patriotism. Few men had more influence than 
Charles Carroll, of Carrollton. He could not move the 
masses by speech, like Samuel Adams, of Massachu- 
setts, but he was supreme in council. He was a gen- 
tleman of the old school, cultured and influential. A 
man of few words, but ever ready for action. A patriot 
without a reproach; a Christian whose light was not 
hidden under a bushel. There were many Charles Car- 
rolls in Maryland. When the Declaration of Independ- 
ence was signed, Mr. Carroll simply signed it ''Charles 
Carroll." Somebody suggested that if any "trouble 
came out of the performance of that day, Carroll would 
escape; there were so many Charles Carrolls in Mary- 
land, it would be difficult to select the culprit." Car- 
roll immediately recalled the instrument, and with a 
bold, dashing hand, added "of Carrollton." As much 
as to say, if his Majesty George III. wants anything of 
me, he'll know where to find me. The honored appel- 
lation, "Charles Carroll, of Carrollton," has distin- 
guished the name of Carroll through all these years 
of our nation's history, placing him foremost among 
the heroic men who gave their lives to the sacred cause, 
and carved their names wdth their own swords, on the 
fa§ade of American liberty. 



AN OLD LETTER RESTORED. 285 



AN OLD LETTEE EESTOEED. 

By MpvS. Annie A. Pratt. 
My Dear Cousin: 

Should you wonder whence this letter, 
"Whence this huge attempt at burlesque: 
I should answer, I should tell you, 
From the great Eock Eiver valley; 
From the home of my forefathers. 
Near the city we call Janesville ; 
A mile removed from din and bustle, 
A mile removed from all confusion; 
From the great and noisy city, 
"Where the blackened smoke of foundries 
Speak in thunder tones of labor. 
Of the labor of the white man. 
Of his wondrous inventions, 
Of the movements of the steam-car. 
As it thunders o'er the prairies. 
Ever up to time and tiding — 
Bringing ever the glad echo, 
Of the faithful star of empire. 
Ever journeying to the westward. 
To the purple clouds of sunset, 
^Till the good and glorious Giver 
Of our great, unnumbered blessing^. 
Shall recall us to His bosom, 
To the land of the Hereafter. 

"While sitting on this porch this evening. 

Gazing far into the eastward, 

I am thinking of my cousin, 

Of my much-loved cousin Francis, 

In the city of all humbugs. 

On the Island of Manhattan; 

And the thought occurred unto me. 



286 AN OLD LETTER RESTORED. 

I will answer now his letter. — 
Letter filled with brightest fancies, 
Filled with logic, too, and reason — 
I am sure your heart is in it. 
For it is a theme prolific, — 
Theme you ever love to dwell on — 
May it ever prove a blessing, 
And to you a sure salvation. 
Here Fm sitting very lonely, 
Lonely at the hour of tv/ilight, 
"Wondering where are all my loved ones, 
Those in whom my heart delighteth. 
One half-moon ago last Wednesday, 
I did say farewell unto them. 
Unto those I long to be with. 
Be with now and be with ever. 
And still further to the westward. 
To the portals of the sunset. 
To the coast of the Pacific, 
To the city of St. Francis, 
Speed my thoughts by love directed, 
To the husband of my worship. 
To the father of my children. 
To the home he made so happy. 
Made so happy by his presence. 
As the splendors of the sunset 
Fade into the dusk of evening. 
And the evening star upriseth. 
Trembling star of love and woman, — 
Gazeth he upon its luster, 
Thinking of his absent Annie, 
Of the partner of his bosom. 
Of his good and loving daugiiter. 
Tall and slender, fair and fragile, 
Of his faithful heart the favorite ? 
Thinketh he of his boy fearless, 



AN OLD LETTER RESTORED. 287 

Of his boy with eyes of midnight, 
And his locks like wing of raven; 
Of his boy, so like his father, 
That his mother ever findeth 
In his features some new beauty: 
Some resemblance to the image 
In her heart of hearts she beareth ? 
Hasten, Time, your tardy footsteps, 
Till you bring the day I meet him, 
Till he clasps me to his bosom. 
In the home he makes so happy. 

But still other thoughts the evening 
Bringeth in her car of darkness. 
In her car of ebon darkness — 
Thoughts, my cousin, of thy kindness. 
Of thy pure and lofty mind. 
Of thy counsels kind and good. 
Of thy friendship warm and faithful; 
Ever faithful to your cousin, 
To your cousin who so prizeth 
Friendship, rare as it is faithful — 
To your home in distant Gotham, 
To the island of Manhattan, 
Comes this letter fully freighted 
"With the messages of kindness — 
Telling you of our well-doing. 
Of the health of all your cousins 
In the county of Outagamie, 
In the valley of Fox Kiver, 
In "Wisconsin, State of badgers. 
There, too, dwelleth old Eliza, 
With her people and her kindred. 
In the lodge of ancient Eachel — 
Busy with her hands and fingers. 
Making ready for her journey, 
Eor her journey to the westward. 



288 AN OLD LETTER RESTORED. 

Catherine, first-born of Eliza, 
From her home on distant prairies, 
In the land of the Dacotahs, 
From the city of Menota, 
On the banks of Mississippi, 
Near the falls of Minnehaha, 
In the land of Minnesota, 
Comes to gladden all her people 
With the pleasure of her presence, 
Comes to tarry with her mother, 
Till the day of her departure — 
Till the fourth day of September. 
There, too, Anah, with her children. 
From the City of the Portage, 
Sojourns with her loving mother. 
Till the day of her departure — 
Till the fourth day of September. 
Bachel, sister of Eliza, 
Worketh still with willing fingers 
For the comfort of her household. 
Of her household, glad and grateful. 
Rowland, spouse of ancient Rachel, 
Worketh in his fertile garden. 
In the grain so tall and golden, 
'MoDg the melons, large and yellow. 
Glowing 'neath the tender corn-blades- 
Worketh late and worketh early. 
Rejoicing in the great abundance 
Of the rich and glowing harvest. 
Rachel's first-born, Foster Edgar, 
Thinketh now to move his wigwam 
To the " Heads," off San Francisco, 
Where the Golden Gate shall open 
Wide her portals to receive him. 
Daughters three of ** aged Rachel," 



AN OLD LETTER RESTORED. 289 

Dwell beneatli their father's roof-tree, 
Thanking God for all the comforts. 
All the comforts in their wigwam; 
Thanking ever the Great Spirit 
For the blessings in their wigwam. 
Soon Eliza, with her children — 
Annie, and Louisa Gertrude, 
Youngest daughter of Eliza, 
Charles and Lucy, Annie's children. 
Soon will come to you for welcome; 
Come to tarry in your wigwam 
Till one moon has waned and faded. 
Then to hasten on their journey — 
On their journey to the westward. 
To the coast of the Pacific. 
On the seventh of September 
We will venture on the waters — 
O'er the dark and stormy waters. 
In the canoe of the white man. 
Through the lakes once skimmed by red men, 
"Where their numbers were as legion. 
Paddling onward, ever onward. 
Till the City of the Bison 
Looms up grandly in the distance. 
Then the hoi'se with frame of iron. 
Breath of steam, and lungs of fire. 
Shall convey us to your city — 
To your hospitable city. 
There your guests until October. 
Greet for us our cousin Sarah; 
The singing bird, your gentle Juliet, 
And all the rest amongst our kindred 
Who sojourn upon the Hudson — 
On the banks of far-famed Hudson. 
Lest I should your patience weary. 



19 



290 AN OLD LETTER BESTORED. 

I will say farewell unto you. 
May you find this hasty missive, 
From your kindred in "Wisconsin, 
Full of news and news of interest. 
Is the heart-felt wish of Annie. 



Red Lodge House (Eeformatort eor Boys), 
Bristol, England. 

^ "^ ^ I am rejoiced to learn that you are tak- 
ing up the cause of the children who are. to constitute 
the next generation in the State. Your ''Directory" 
will disclose the need of something further. I began 
with a Children's Agent in 1864, to look after every child 
who wanted help. In 1870, the School Board adopted 
the plan of " children's agents." They employ nine in 
different districts of the city. We are trying to get 
Government to take up the matter. You should do the 
same; it is an auxiliary preparation for going to work. 
You should also have an industrial institution for young 
men from fifteen to twenty years, where some skilled 
trades should be taught, as well as rough work to begin 
with, letting the inmates earn enough for their board, 
and leave as soon as they can get work outside. If 
these are combined with rigorous police supervision, 
preventing any young persons from infesting the streets, 
you will soon save expense by diminished crime. 
Kindly let me know how you proceed, and believe me 

yours sincerely, 

Mary Carpenter. 



A GOOD AND NOBLE RECOED. 291 

A GOOD AND NOBLE HECOKD. 

By Very Eev. Thomas S. Preston. 

St. Yincent de Paul was born at Pony, in Gascony, 
in the year 1576; Lis father, John de Paul, was a pious 
farmer, in humble life and of limited means, and his 
family were inured to the most laborious part of country 
labor. Yincent, the third son, gave, at an early age, 
such extraordinary signs of capacity and affection for 
prayer, that his father determined, at every sacrifice, to 
procure him an education, and to second his desires to 
enter the holy priesthood. He was, therefore, sent, at 
twelve years of age, to learn Latin of the Franciscan 
Friars, in the neighboring village of Acqs. Having 
thus acquired the necessary elementary knowledge, he 
Avas enabled to relieve his family of the burden of his 
education and to provide for himself. He became 
tutor in the family of a lawyer of the place, who, seeing 
his good qualities, sent him to the University of Tou- 
louse, where he passed seven years of study, and was 
ordained priest in the year 1600. Up to this time, his 
life had passed smoothly, in the innocence of his 
father's household and amid the congenial occupations 
of study and prayer. It pleased Almighty God, who 
purposed to make him an apostle of charity, to put his 
faith to a severe test, and to send him trials of a very 
unusual kind. He seemed already endowed with those 
virtues which make up the character of a worthy and 
zealous minister of the altar, but he was called to prac- 
tice that more heroic self-denial by which man is cruci_ 
fied to self and all inordinate affection. He knew the 
science of the schools, he was now to learn the mystery 
of the cross, and by great suffering to have a new fellow- 



292 A GOOD AND NOBLE EECORD. 

ship in the consolations of Christ. In 1605 he was 
called to Marseilles to receive a legacy left him by a 
friend in that city, and on his return voyage to Nar- 
bonne was captured by Turkish pirates, carried to 
Tunis and there sold as a slave. In the dress 
of a captive he was led several times through 
the city, exposed to every ignominy. His 
first purchaser was a fisherman, who, findiug 
that the stranger would not be able to endure the 
rigors of the sea, sold him very soon to an alchemist. 
This man was an enthusiast in his profession; and, see- 
ing the good qualities and capacities of Vincent, was 
captivated with him, and sought in every way to convert 
him to the religion of Mohammed, promising to leave 
him all his riches, and all the secrets of his valued 
science. All his acts and affection could never shake 
the well-grounded faith of the poor captive, who, in his 
banishment, found his only consolation in the lights of 
prayer, by which God continually illumined and attracted 
his heart. He lived with this old man nearly one year, 
when, by the death of his master, he became the prop- 
erty of one of his nephews, a man of evil temper and 
overbearing selfishness. This change tried well the 
tender heart of Yincent, who would have been almost 
tempted to despair, if God had not given him extra- 
ordinary graces. But this new master did not retain 
him long. He was offered for sale the third time, and 
bought at last by an apostate Christian, who had come 
from Nice. This purchase was to prove, not only the 
liberation of the captive, but the conversion of the un- 
happy renegade; for Yincent became an apostle of 
mercy to his soul. His farm, on a hot mountain of the 
desert, was the field of labor for our hero, and there 
alone he communed with God, repeating aloud the 



A GOOD AND NOBLE BECOED. 293 

prayers of the Churcli, or singing, for his consolation, 
tlie praises of Christ. The apostate had three wives, 
one of whom w^s greatly moved by the life and example 
of the poor slave. She went often to the field where 
he was digging, and begged him to sing to her the 
hymns of his religion. With tears in his eyes he sang 
to her the psalm, *'Upon the rivers of Babylon, we sat 
and wept when we remembered Zion," the ''Salve 
Regina," and other prayers. When there seemed to be 
no hope of escape, this unhappy Turkish woman was 
destined to open the way. After hearing the conversa- 
tion of the Christian captive, she was so much moved 
that she began to reproach her husband with having 
abandoned the true religion, and, at last, he listened to 
the voice of conscience, and sincerely repented of his 
apostasy. He goes to his slave and opens his heart, 
confessing his grief and crime. They consult together 
on the best method of escaping, and resolve to leave 
Tunis at once and to seek some Christian shore. They 
set sail, therefore, upon the Mediterranean in a light 
boat, which the least squall of wind would upset; but 
God guided the frail bark, and they landed safe at a 
small port near Marseilles. At Avignon, in the hands 
of the Yice-Legate, the apostate made his abjuration, 
and the following year, 1608, went to Eome with Yin- 
cent, where ho entered, as a penitent, in the austere 
community of Hospital Monks, under the rule of St. 
John of God. 

A short stay in Rome served to inspire Yincent with 
new devotion, and a more earnest desire to serve his 
own country in the vv'orks of charity, to which he felt 
called by our Lord. In the holy city he had secured 
the friendship of Cardinal D'Ossat, who sent him on a 
secret mission to King Henry lY., and introduced him 



294 A GOOD AND NOBLE RECORD. 

to a class of society which greatly increased his influ- 
ence, and was able to aid him in the undertakings 
which he afterwards commenced. He was nominated 
to the abbey of St. Leonard de Chaume, in the diocese 
of Kochelle, and also named almoner of Queen Marga- 
ret, of Yalois. In 1613 he entered the family of the 
Count de Joigny, as tutor, and in addition to his regu- 
lar duties, began to preach to the peasantry, with such 
results that the Countess, who became his great patron, 
offered to endow any religious community who would 
undertake the same work. In 1622 he became chaplain 
to the galleys at Marseilles, and gave himself up with such 
ardor to the welfare of the poor convicts, that he suc- 
ceeded in greatly improving their condition in body and 
soul. With the same end in view, he went to Paris and 
introduced his reforms into the prisons, obtained a sep- 
arate building for the convicts, and lived in the same 
house with them; and when he was obliged to be ab- 
sent, procured two priests, who should minister to them. 

In the same year he became director of the nuns of 
the Order of the Visitation, in Paris, which office he 
retained until his death. 

We next hear of him at Macon, laboring among the 
multitudes of thieves and beggars, for whom that city 
was then notorious. By his great efforts he wrought 
many conversions among that abandoned and generally 
neglected class. 

In 1624, he at the renewed solicitation of the Countess 
de Joigny, established the order of the ' ' Priests of the 
Mission." Five priests joined him at first in this un- 
dertaking, and their first residence was the college of 
the Bons Enfants, of which they took possession in April, 
1625. Afterwards the Archbishop gave them the priory 
of St. Lazarus, in Paris, for their permanent residence. 



A GOOD AND NOBLE RECOED. 295 

and from this circumstance they bear the name of Laza- 
rists. Their rules and constitutions were approved by 
Pope Urban YIII., in 1632. They are a congregation 
of secular priests, who, after the probation of two years, 
take the usual yows. They are devoted to the spiritual 
exercises tending to sanctify their own souls; secondly, 
to the conversion of sinners, especially to missions 
among the poor; and thirdly, to the training of priests 
for the ministry of the altar. This order of missionaries 
is now extensively spread throughout the world, and 
still exhibits the spirit of its saintly founder. 

Yincent next devoted himself to the spiritual improve- 
ment of the clergy, establishing retreats for the ecclesi- 
astics preparing for ordination, and regular conferences 
for the priesthood. "With the assistance of Cardinal 
Bichelieu, whose confidence he fully enjoyed, he opened 
a house, in 1642, in which the young priests might fit 
themselves for their labors, by two or three years of re- 
tirement spent in prayer and spiritual exercises. All 
these efforts for the sanctification of the clergy were 
fruitful to a wonderful degree. 

The foundation of the Sisterhood of Charity, is per- 
haps, one of his greatest works, and has given him a 
world-wide renown. It had been his custom wherever 
he preached to establish confraternities of charity, to 
serve the sick and relieve the distressed. He com- 
menced this plan at Bresse, and continued it in all the 
larger cities. In 1633 he resolved to further enlarge 
the scope of these confraternities by erecting an order 
which should accomplish these objects under a more 
perfect organization. Four young ladies began the 
Sisterhood of Charity under the direction of Madame 
le Gras, a noble lady who had been employed several 
years, under his instructions, among the suffering 



296 A GOOD AND NOBLE liECORD. 

and poor. The rule was drawn up, and the good man 
lived to see twenty-eight houses of the order estab- 
lished in Paris, besides others in various parts of Eu- 
rope. It is hardly necessary to enlarge upon the im- 
mense good accomplished by this one undertaking. The 
Sister of Charity is loved and revered the world all 
over, even by those who know not the faith by which 
she lives. 

His next effort was the establishment of a Found- 
ling Hospital. There Avas no adequate provision made 
for foundlings, who were therefore left to neglect and 
ruin, or were killed by their unnatural parents. He 
pleaded their cause with such zeal that a large fund 
was raised, and a new institution opened in 1640, with 
the direct co-operation of the king and his court. Dur- 
ing the life of Vincent it remained a private institu- 
tion, under the care of a committee of ladies; but in 
1670 Louis XIV. converted it into a public institution, 
and transferred it to the Rue de Notre Dame. 

In the latter days of his life we find no abatement of 
his zeal and energy. He still gave his time and strength 
to the reformation of the hospitals, and the improve- 
ment of the condition of convicts. It is said that he 
once put himself in the place of a convict more unfor- 
tunate than guilty, and bore the fetters of a galley-slave 
for several weeks before he was recognized. 

During the wars in Lorraine, and the famine which 
followed, he collected, among pious persons at Paris, 
nearly two million livres, that is, about five hundred 
thousand dollars, which he caused to be distributed 
among the sufferers. He assisted King Louis XIII. 
at his death, and was appointed by the queen regent, 
Anne of Austria, one of the four members of the Coun- 
cil of Conscience, to whom was committed the distribu- 



A GOOD AND NOBLE RECORD. 297 

tion of ecclesiastical benefices. The last labors of his 
life were the foundation of an asylum for aged artisans 
of both sexes, and a hospital for the poor. This latter 
was opened in 1657, and the Crown obliged the beggars 
of Paris to choose between entering this institution or 
earning their living by such labor as could be thrown 
into their hands. 

We have spoken only of the exterior works of St. Vin- 
cent de Paul, by which he proved the power of God's 
spirit within him. Time would fail us to tell of the 
graces of his interior life, of his great humility, ever re- 
nouncing self, of his spotless purity, of his uninter- 
rupted communion with God. These were the sources 
of his great charities which the world has seen and 
admired. He ever seemed as an instrument of the 
Holy Spirit, to whom, in all things, he referred the 
praise and the glory. His constitution, naturally ro- 
bust, was impaired by his great fatigues and austerities. 
The blessed end of his fruitful life drew near. In his 
eightieth year he was seized with a periodical fever, 
which gradually exhausted his streDgth. Yet his spir- 
itual exercises were never interrupted. After passing 
sleepless nights of pain, he never failed to rise at four 
o'clock in the morniog, to spend three hours in prayer, 
to celebrate holy mass, and to exert his indefatigable 
zeal in the exercise of charity and religion. He even 
redoubled his diligence in giving instruction to his 
spiritual children, and recited every day the prayers of 
the church for persons in their agony, with other acts 
preparatory for the last hour. So, at a full age, when 
four score and five, he finished his glorious course on 
earth. Having received the last sacraments, and spoken 
his last advice, he peacefully expired in his chair on the 
twenty-seventh of September, 1660. Surely we may 



298 A GOOD AND NOBLE RECORD. 

apply to liim tlie words of our Lord, and conjecture tlie 
acclaim of the celestial court when this apostle of char- 
ity went up to join them in their beatitude, *' Come, ye 
blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for 
you from the foundation of the world. For I was hun- 
gry, and you gave Me to eat; I was thirsty, and you 
gave Me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me 
in; naked, and you clothed Me; sick and in prison, and 
you visited Me. — Amen, I say to you, as long as you did 
it to one of these, my least brethren, you did it to Me." 



^ ^ ^ ^ Your polite invitation, to contribute 
a paper for a projected publication, followed me from 
the wilds of Nebraska to Baltimore, where ifc was re- 
ceived some weeks ago. In compliance with your 
request for so worthy an object as that which you pro- 
pose, T soon commenced to write the story of a real 
character, — Eddy Burgess, or the boy-chief of the 
Pawnees, now a member of my dramatic company. 
Since then, however, numerous engagements, previous- 
ly made, have so engrossed whatever little leisure I 
have to compose, that it has been impossible for me to 
finish the sketch of Eddy Burgess in time to appear in 
your Christmas volume for 1878. 

Wishing your enterprise every success, I remain sin- 
cerely yours. 

"Buffalo Bill." (Wm. F. Cody.) 



LES DANGEES DU TABAC. 299 



LES DANGEES DU TABAC. 

By Dr. Hippolyte A. Depierris. 

Il y a comme trois cents ans, les Indiens qui n'ont 
jamais pardonue aux Europeens rinvasion de leur pays 
et la destruction de leur race, donnaient auxEspagnols, 
leurs premiers envahisseurs, dans un but de liaine et de 
yengeance, une lierbe dont I'usage, disaient-ils, pr6- 
viendrait et gu^rirait tons leurs maux. C'etait le tabac, 
qu'ils idolatraient sous le nom de grand Manitou, ou 
de Genie de la Mort, car ils en extrayaient le poison 
dont ils armaient leurs fleclies. lis I'appelerent alors 
CUEAEE, mot espagnol qui signifie cure, remede, et 
par extension, panacee. 

Cliez les sauvages comme parmi les civilises, meme 
de notre temps, les bonnes femmes ont toujours eu des 
secrets pour guerir; et c'etaient elles qui se cliargeaient 
d'administrer aux strangers le curare ou la cure, comme 
devant connaitre mieux qu'eux les maladies du pays et 
les moyens de les traiter. Les malades succombaient 
naturellement sous leurs soins; et la mort eifectuee par 
la yieille empoisonneuse ne manquait pas d'etre mise 
sur le compte de toutes les maladies qui paraissaient 
decimer les blancs, dans ces nouvelles contr(3es; tandis 
que c'etait la pretendue panac6e qui les expediait dans 
I'autre vie. C'etait sous sa forme vegetale et naturelle 
que les Indiens employaient le tabac dans leur medi- 
cation meurtriere des blancs. Dans toutes leurs maladies, 
c'etait toujours la meme plante employee par toutes les 
voies et sous toutes les formes, pour arriver plus sure- 
ment a les faire p^rir. 

Telle est I'origine de cette fameuse panacde indienne 
qui fit alternativement Tengouement et la reprobation 



300 LES DANGERS DU TABAC. 

des generations qu'elle a traversees, pour arriver jusqu'a 
nous. 

L'ambassadeur Nicot introduisit en France la plante 
miraculeuse, dont il fit liommage a Catherine de Medicis, 
sa souveraine, en 1560. L'importation du Nouveau 
Monde, d'un remede a guerir tons les maux, produisit 
sur la vieille Europe ensevelie dans les tenebres de 
I'ignorance et de la superstition du Moyen Age, une de 
ces impressions qui sont un e'vdnement dans I'liumanite. 
C'^tait un bon temps pour le succes de la panacee. 
Les charlatans, les sorciers,. les devins, les magiciens, 
les astrologues, tous ces exploiteurs de I'ignorance liu- 
maine 6taient en pleine faveur, tenant boutique ouverte 
a toutes les superstitions. L'arrivde du tabac fut pour 
eux une bonne fortune. Les effets extraordinaires et 
inconnus de cette plante sur I'organisme humain, la firent 
entrer d'emblee dans la me'decine et dans toutes les sci- 
ences occultes qui tenaient de la magie. 

Catherine de Medicis qui debutait dans sa rojale car- 
riere, recherchait avec affectation tout ce qui pouvait 
faire parler d'elle. Fanatique et superstitieuse, elle 
reva de guerir tous les maux par sa propre puissance. 
Elle s'appropria la plante de Nicot, I'idole des sauvages 
du Nouveau Monde; elle lui donna sonnom, Cathdrinaire, 
M^dicee, Herbe a la Beine, avec le titre pompeux de 
Panacee Universelle; et Tintroduisit dans son royaume 
sous son tout-puissant patronage. Elle Tadministra en 
poudre, par le nez, a Charles IX., son fils, pour purger 
les humeurs strumeuses de son cerveau; et, a I'exemple 
du Boi, tous les courtisans et les hommes de bon ton se 
mirent a priser. Soit fanatisme ou mode, I'usage du 
tabac parti de si haut, se r^pandit bientot dans tout le 
monde civilise. 

II J avait d^ja bien longtemps que Ton prisait pour 



LES DANGEKS DU TABAC. 301 

se preserver des maladies dont le point do depart, au 
dire de la science d'alors, etait le cerveau qui les engen- 
drait et les envoyait sous forme d'(^manations malsaines, 
a tons les organes; et les maladies n'en tourmentaient 
pas moins la pauvre humanite'. Le regno du tabac, de- 
pouille do son prestige de panache et abaisse au rang 
d'uu usage malpropre, semblait pres de finir, lorsque les 
luttes academiques recommencerent au sujet de ses ver- 
tus curatives. 

— "Cen'estpas par le cerveau," dirent les novateurs, 
''qu'il faut attaquer les maladies; c'est par I'estomac. 
Cost la que fermentent certaines liumeurs, r^sidu impur 
de la digestion ; c'est done la qu'il faut porter le correctif, 
la panacee." Alors les sectes des fumeurs et des 
oliiqueurs prirent naissance, dans un conflit d'opinions 
les plus extravagantes. Priseurs, fumeurs, chiqueurs, 
dans leur joie debonnaire, demandaient au tabac a les 
pre'server et a lee gu(5rir des maladies, lorsque Ton 
decouvrit dans la panacee de la Heine, non pas des 
vertus curatives mais le plus meurtrier des poisons. 

En 1851, la science et la justice surprenaient I'lierbo 
a Nicot en flagrant delit d'empoisonnement et de crime. 

Bocarme, un beige qui avait vecu au milieu des Tn- 
diens et qui savait qu'ils employaient leur pre'tendue 
panacee, leur curare, pour faire mourir leurs ennemis, 
s'en servit pour tuer son beau-frere, dont il convoitait 
riieritage. II croyait ecliapper a la justice en employ- 
ant un poison jusqu'alors inconnu. C'est dans ce proces 
memorable que la science est venue, pour la premiere 
fois, mettre au grand jour les propriete's affreusement 
meurtrieres du tabac. EUe a demontre que cette plante, 
la plus veneneuse que Ton connaisse, contient de 3 a 9 
pour cent, de nicotine, qui tue un clieval a I'aide d'un 
atome introduit dans sa chair comme le ferait la fleclie 



302 LES DANGERS DU TABAC. 

de ITndien, ou d'une goutte deposee sur son oeil. 
Apres des experiences si concluentes, si cette longue 
question du tabao n'a pas ete definitivement resolue, si 
la raison ue I'a pas bannie de nos moeurs, comme I'avait 
fait pendant pres de deux siecles une legislation se'vere 
qui protegeait les societes contre son envaliissement, 
que Ton considerait des ce temps-la comme funeste; 
c'est que les interets de la speculation aidant, I'habitude 
et I'amour-propre ont resiste a I'evidence. Les crojants 
aux vertus de la panacee, n'ont pas voulu reconnaitre 
qu'ils etaient les dupes des malicieux ludiens; et, pour 
braver la mystification, lis ont dit: — ''puisque le tabac 
ne gue'rit pas les maux physiques, il doit guerir certaine- 
ment les maladies morales, le desoeuvrement, I'ennui " — 
et c'est aujourd'hui la seule vertu qu'on clierche a lui 
reconnaitre. 

Et ces proprietes nouvelles, il les a encore usurpees, 
car le tabac ne distrait pas, il ne desennuie pas; il assu- 
jetit, au contraire; il cree des besoins facticesdontbien 
souvent on souffre, quand on ne pent pas les satisfaire. II 
ote a I'homme la sante qui est le premier des biens con- 
tre I'ennui; il communique I'acrete de son poison a sa 
nature primitivement laborieuse, douce et bonne; il le 
rend mou, melancolique, maniaque, mechant, ennuye de 
tout, fatigue de tout excepte du tabac lui-meme, qui 
fait presque exclusivement la jouissance de sa vie, dont 
il abrege toujours le terme, sous toutes les formes de la 
maladie ou de I'epuisement. 

En effet, le consommateur de tabac use la partie la 
plus pure de ses energies, son iluide nerveux, son prin- 
cipe vital, a lutter contre son poison qu'il absorbe tous 
les jours, et dans cette lutte incessante il s'affaisse beau- 
coup plus vite que par la marche reguliere des annees. 
De la viennent la vieillesse pre'coce et la mort prema- 
turee. 



LES DANGEKS DU TABAC. 303 

Avant la domination du tabac en 1825, on comDtait' 
en France plus de 17,000 centenaires. En 1876, on 
n'en recensaifc plus que 107. Aussi les populations di- 
minuent, au lieu de suivre la marclie naturelle et ascen- 
dante de leur accroissement. 

Yoila les consequences de Taction du tabac sur la 
constitution physique de I'liomme. Yoyons ses effets 
sur son intelligence et sur son sens moral, qui sont les 
manifestations les plus nobles de son ame. 

Si Tame, comme la definit la philosopliie, est une in- 
telligence servie par des organes, si ces organes sont en 
souffrance, par quelque cause que ce soit, les manifesta- 
tions de Tame seront imparfaites; I'intelligence perdra 
de sa puissance a creer la pensee; le genie lauguira dans 
la sterilite et la torpeur. 

Aujourd'hui, que toutes les classes de la societe sont 
envabies par la passion du tabac, I'humanite se modifie 
en mal, par la continuation du narcotisme, comme les 
races de'generent par le climat. Aussi, est-ce en vain 
que la civilisation et les progres nous eclairent, I'in- 
struction, les arts, la religion, etla morale cultivent notre 
enfance; nous arrivons a I'adolescence, a la puberte, 
avec tons les germes des qualites physiques et intellec- 
tuelles qui nous permettraient par leur developpement, 
d'atteindre a I'apogee de notre existence d'hommes; 
mais a I'entree de la carriere, I'ignorance du mal, le 
demon de la tentation, et la contagion de I'exemple nous 
livrent sans experience a la seduction du tabac. 

Alors toutes ces energies qui naissent de notre jeune 
organisme comme des rayons de lumiere et de vie, tons 
ces enthousiasmes pour le beau, le grand, le vrai, qui 
cre'ent I'art, la litterature et la science, tout languit et 
s'etiole dans les lourdes vapeurs du nicotisme. II ne 
nous laisse plus au cerveau que I'engourdissement, I'im- 
puissance ou le delire; la secheresse au coeur. 



304: LES DANGERS DU TABAC. 

Des observations recentes, faites a I'Ecole Poljtech- 
nique de France, ont constate que sur cent soixante 
eleves, cent vingt fumaient. Les eleves non-fumeurs 
ont eu dans I'ordre de promotion un rang bien plus 
eleve que les f umeurs qui croient que le cigare donne un 
cacliet plus viril a I'epee. Des eleves, entre's a I'ecoleavec 
les premiers numeros ont perdu, en devenant fumeurs, 
toute leur superiorite, et sont descendus dans la cate- 
gorie des incapables refuses qui, presque tous, sont con- 
sommateurs de tabac. 

Si, sous I'influence du tabac, I'intelligence a ses fai- 
blesses d'ou naissent les liallucinations et la folie dont 
les victimes eucombreut partout les etablissements 
d'alienes, le sens moral qui est le couronnement de 
toutes les perfections liumaines, I'emanation la plus 
subtile de notre organisme, n'est pas exempt des at- 
teintes pervertives du nicotisme. 

Le sens moral est cette faculte qu'a I'liomme de dis- 
tinguer le bien du mal. Elle le porte a aimer I'uu et a 
detester I'autre. C'est du sens moral que decoulent 
toutes nos qualites sociables, la justice, la douceur, la 
cl^mence, la cliarit^. 

Un des effets les plus constants de I'ivresse nicoti- 
neuse est d'assombrir le caractere de I'iiomme. Elle 
fane la fraiclieur de sa jeunesse en intervertissant en 
lui, par une sorte d'aberration, toutes les aspirations 
du sens moral. Elle substitue, par exemple, la Laine a 
I'amour, I'egoisme a la ge'iierosite, la rancune a la 
clemence; elle ^^gare la raison dans le discernement du 
bien et du mal et fait que, dans son caprice, elle prend 
souvent I'un pour I'autre. 

C'est par alteration du sens moral, sous I'influence 
enivrante du tabac, que Thomme sent s'eteindre en lui 
les aspirations a la vie, qui sont si iinperieuses cliez 
tous les Aleves. Aimer la vie, se cramponner a toutes 



LES DANGERS DU TABAC. 305 

ses asperites, a toutes ses amerhimes, c'est la loi natu- 
relle. Mais sous I'age dii tabac, riiommc engourdi dans 
la vie semble insensible a ses jouissances: tout lui 
pese, tout I'ennuie. Sans affection pour qui que ce soit, 
il torabe dans le decouragement et I'hypocondrie; il ne 
tient plus a rien, pas meme a lui; et un bean jour, sans 
raisons, meme quand il a tout ce que tant d'autres lui 
envieraient pour les rendre lieureux, la famille, le 
rang, la fortune, — il se tue 

Et la statistique nous demontre que le nombre des 
suicides grandit regulierement avec I'augmentation de 
la consommation du tabac. 

C'est avec la meme re'gularite que grandissent aussi 
les instincts criminels. Et quand les moralistes, les 
legislateurs, les magistrats se demandent quelles causes 
mysterieuses poussent aux plus horribles crimes tant 
d'hommes que I'education a formes et qui sortent de 
toutes les classes de la socie'te, la seule raison que 
Ton puisse donner a toutes ces anomalies qui desolent 
autant qu'elles deslionorent notrc epoque, c'est que tous 
ces criminels ont ete depossedes du sens liumain par 
I'effet degradant du tabac sur leur cerveau. 

A-vant d'arriver a ces degres extremes de I'alienation 
de I'intelligence et du sens moral, les sujets qui sont 
profondement sous I'influence du tabac, passent par une 
serie d'etats nerveux que remarquent aisement tous 
ceux qui les entourent. 

La patbologie moderne qui enregistre toutes ces 
anomalies inconnues autrefois, les designe sous le nom 
de nevrosisme, etat nerveux, nevropathie proteiforme. 
Le ne'vrosisme est moins aigu que cbronique; il varie 
entre I'agacement nerveux qui en est le premier sjmp- 
tome, jusqu'aux desordres fonctionnels les plus nom- 
breux et les plus graves. 

C'est I'inquietude et I'impatience morale, la fatigue 
20 



306 LES DANGERS DU TABAC. 

do tout; ce sont les palpitations, la toux iierveuse, les 
liallncinations, la frayeur. Elles font du mallieureux 
7iicotine non seulement un lijpocondriaque, mais encore 
un lijsterique; car il a tons les symptomes qui consti- 
tuent cet etat maladif qui n'appartient qu'a la femme, 
et qui s'appelle aussi cliez elle crise de nerfs, vapenrs. 

Le Docteur Weir Mitchell, dans sa clinique sur les 
maladies iierveuses dont il est specialement cliarge a 
riiopital de Philadelphie, reconnait que ces affections, 
que ne mentionnent pas assez les traites de pathologie, 
deviennent de plus en plus frequentes et que, contraire- 
ment a ce qui devrait exister, elles sont infiniment plus 
nombreuses cliez I'liomme que cliez la femme; et, comma 
nous, il n'hesite pas a en attribuer la cause la plus 
directe aux effets du tabac dont les dames, surtout les 
Americaines, ont assez de bon gout et de raison pour ne 
pas user, sous aucune forme. 

Avec une action si perturbatrice sur I'organisme des 
hommes, le tabac r^agira forcement, par voie de dege- 
ndrescence, sur leur progeniture. Car la raison et 
I'experience attestent qu'un liomme altere dans ses 
facultes physiques et morales, ne pent pas donner la 
vie a des enfants aussi parfaits que s'il etait parfait 
lui-meme. Et c'est la une des principales causes de la 
dege'nerescence et de la depopulation des pays oii les 
enfants naissent dans des conditions de faiblesse si 
marqu(^e qu'ils deviennent, com mo leurs peres, incapa- 
bles de poursuivre une longue carriere. 

Ceux qui echappent a la mortality excessive du pre- 
mier age, n'ont pas cette vigueur de corps et d'esprit que 
Ton trouve dans le type liumain parfait. lis sont ra- 
bougris, chetifs, pen susceptibles de profiter des bien- 
faits de I'e'ducation, comme les races qui degenerent. 

Aujourd'hui, plus nous prenons de soins a instruire et 
a moraliser la jeunesse, plus nous trouvons dans nos 



LES DANGERS DU TABAC. 307 

ecoles des sujets refractaires a toute education. A cote 
des e'leves qui travaillent avec succes et qui apportent 
a la societe tous les bene'fices de la culture de leur in- 
telligence, il en est une quantite considerable qui ont 
de I'aversion pour 1 'etude, tout ce qui est travail les 
irrite. lis ne recherclient que la liberte et I'independ- 
ance; et impuissants a se creer lionnetemeut des moyens 
d'existence, ils se jettent par bandes dans le yagabond- 
age, la mendicite, le vol. 

Ce sont ces bandes qui ticxinent constamment en 
echec la police des grandes villes, et que Ton designe 
en Calif ornie sous le uom collectif de Hoodlums. lis 
sont la x)epiniere d'ou sortent toutes les categories de 
malfaiteurs adultes qui desbonorent notre epoque. lis 
alimentent les tribunaux dune clientelle speciale de 
criminels de quatorze a dix-buit ans, qui viennent 
effrontement demander a la justice le benefice de la loi, 
pour marque de discernement dans I'accomplissement 
de leurs mefaits qu'ils ont souvent longuement medites 
avant de s'en rendre coupables. 

Ce debordement de criminalite, aux Etats-Unis, est 
une anomalie toute moderne qui n'est j)as sans frapper 
I'attention des liommes serieux, habitues a voir la jeu- 
nesse grandir par la liberte dans la moralite et la sci- 
ence. Souvent les magistrats de la justice ont signale 
a I'administration superieure cet evenement comme un 
danger social contre lequel il importait d'aviser. 

Et, quand on avisera, ne pouvant trouver la cause dii 
mal dans des institutions polifciques et sociales qui, de- 
puis un siecle, ont ameliore les liommes au lieu de les 
faire dechoir, on en viendra, comme nousle faisons nous- 
memes, a en accuser le tabac d'abord et, en second lieu 
I'Alcool qui est le complice naturel, inevitable de I'oeuvre 
de degradation que le poison des Caraibes poursuivra 
sur rkumanite partout ou elle aura ete assez faible pour 
se laisser seduire par sa trompeuse ivresse. 



308 WATCHWOEDS OF LIFE. 



"WATCHWOEDS OF LIFE. 

By Rev. De,. William H. Platt. 

Hope, 
While there's a hand to strike! 

Dare, 
"While there 's a young heart brave ! 

Toil, 
While there 's a task unwrought ! 

Trust, 
While there 's a God to save! 

Learn 
That there "s a work for each ! 

Feel 
That there 's a strength in God ! 

Know 
That there's a crown reserved! 

Wait, 
Though 'neath the cloud and rod! 

Love, 
While there 's a foe that wrongs ! 

Help, 
When there *s a brother's need ! 

Watch, 
When there's a tempter near! 

Pray, 
Both in thy word and deed! 



THE YEAR OF THE CHURCH. 309 



THE YEAE OF THE CHUECH. 

By Mrs. Mary A. Sadlieb. 

To Catholics who like to follow the path of life 
marked out for them bj their mother, the Church, how 
far different is the year's loug round from that of the 
outside world! To them the year is something more 
than a space of time during which our planet turns so 
many times upon its axis, bringing day and night, and 
the four seasons, in due succession. To them each day, 
as it comes and goes, is a living reality, an ever-welcome 
presence, endowed with a distinctive character, a pecu- 
liar meaning. 

To the true child of the Church the year, in its pas- 
sage, presents a grand and ever-present record of the 
great mysteries of religion, the sublime truths of faith. 
It reminds him from day to day of God, — of Jesus 
Christ, — of His Blessed Mother, — of His saints, — of 
His holy angels, — of the whole vast scheme of redemp- 
tion, the communion of saints, and the eternal relations 
existing between the Creator and His creature, man. 

In the Catholic year, the whole history of the church 
is epitomised and the wonderful dealings of God with 
men made manifest. It is a book written, as it were, by 
the Church herself, setting forth from age to age, to all 
the generations of mankind, the great things which God 
has done for His people, the eternal love wherewith He 
has loved them, the marvels of His grace in the saints 
who reign with Him in heaven, and the glorious destiny 
awaiting all who are willing to serve Him in the days of 
their mortal pilgrimage. It is, so to say, a compendium 
of the history of the Bible and the lives of the saints, 
presented in the simplest form, yet speaking a lan- 
guage indicative of its divine origin. 



310 THE YEAR OF THE CHURCH. 

Into the twelve calendar months, what a mighty world 
of action — what a lofty range of ideas — what a glorious 
epic has the divine wisdom of the Church compressed! 
And this grandest of epics is subdivided into three, or 
rather four, distinct parts. One of these relates to 
every age, to each succeeding generation of men the 
wondrous story of Christ's birth, life, death, resurrec- 
tion and ascension. The second part treats of the 
beautiful life, and the all but superhuman virtues of the 
Virgin of prophecy, the ever-blessed Mother of God; 
her sufferings, her sorrows, her joys, her triumphs, her 
eternal glory in the kingdom of her Son. 

The third part of this great dramatic poem, which 
the Church places year after year before her children, 
shows forth the wonders of God in His saints, what they 
did and what they suffered, one and all, for and through 
Him whose grace strengthened and supported them in 
the midst of trials and temptations which ordinary 
mortals are seldom called to meet or to bear. 

The fourth and last part of this sublime epic relates 
' to the angels of God; those bright intelligences who 
have never lost the pristine glory of their creation — • 
those myriads of heavenly spirits who form the army of 
the Great King, His ministers for ever and ever — those 
faithful guardians whom He, in His infinite mercy, has 
appointed for every creature born of Adam's race. 

Again, we may liken the year of the Church to the 
planetary system of the universe, in which the stars of 
the first magnitude are represented by the festivals of 
our Lord — the second, by those of His holy mother and 
her glorious spouse, St. Joseph; while the feasts of the 
saints and the holy angels are as the countless stars 
of lesser magnitude rolling in the measureless realms 
of space. 



THE YEAR OP THE CHURCH. 311 

Eacli of the four seasons of the year brings its own 
bright series of triple festivals, consecrating each by a 
threefold consecration to God, the Author and Father 
of time, His angels and his saints. 

Spring comes in her balmy freshness, clothing the 
earth with verdure and with beauty, awakening all na- 
ture to life and joy. Summer appears in due time, and 
clothes the earth in a regal mantle of gorgeous light and 
color. Autumn, in turn, reigns as queen, with her 
mellow hues, her many-tinted fruits, her purple twi- 
lights, her changing woods. And winter comes at last, 
with rushing streams and storm -tossed woods and 
pelting rain, shrouding the beautiful earth in the 
mournful garb of death. Yet, amid all these changes of 
the outer world, the Church goes calmly on her way, 
turning over, day by day, a leaf of her wonderful lit- 
urgy, and pointing with a finger of light to some mys- 
tery of religion — some scene or event in the mortal life 
of the Saviour of men — or the acts of some hero or 
heroine of the cross long since beatified in heaven. 

The early dawn of the summer morning and the first 
tardy beam that struggles through the lowering sky of 
"winter, find the minister of the Catholic Church at her 
lighted altar, offering up to the majesty of God, "from 
the rising to the setting of the sun," the clean oblation 
foretold by Malachy the prophet, in union with the 
appointed office of the day. 

When we consider this as going on not only every 
day in the year, but all the day long, in the various re- 
gions of the earth, as the planet slowly turns on her 
axis, we shall be able to form some idea of the wonder- 
ful perpetuity and continuity of Catholic Avorship, of 
what is meant by " The year of the Church." 

This, as regards time. Now let us consider, in some- 



312 THE YEAR OF THE CHURCH. 

thing like detail, what the Church honors with a special 
honor in her sacred liturgy during the year. She honors, 
first and above all, the holy and undivided Trinity, 
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the beghniing and end of 
all things, the basis of all religion. Then the most sa- 
cred heart of Jesus; His birth, His circumcision, His 
presentation in the temple. His mysterious fast of forty 
days in the desert, His triumphal entry into Jerusalem 
on Palm-Sunday, the sufferings of His passion in all 
their dread details. His death on the cruel cross, the 
cross itself, His three days' rest in the holy sepulchre, 
Histriumphantresurrectionon Easter morn. His glorious 
ascension, and, finally. His most solemn institution of 
the sacrament of the Eucharist, whereby He bequeathed 
to His Church and her children, for all time, the soul- 
nourishing food of His own most sacred body and blood. 

Is ifc not true to say, that the year of the Church 
takes in the whole vast scheme of redemption, and all 
its ever-living, ever-present effects; embraces within its 
revolving circle the grandest range of ideas, the highest 
and mightiest achievements ever wrought on earth, the 
most marvelous events in the history of mankind? 

Every day that passes presents a new phase of this 
wondrous story — new, and yet old, as old as creation. 
And so it will go on, this glorious epic, this magnifi- 
cent drama, till the last sun of time shall rise upon the 
earth; till the last mass is said, the last Eucharistic 
sacrifice consummated on the last of days, when the 
Church shall have chanted her last office and closed for- 
ever the volume of her divine liturgy — that volume Avliich 
has been for nigh two thousand years the book of the 
nations. 

But the grandeur, the immensity of the Catholic year, 
as regards the nature of the festivals it celebrates, is 



THE YEAR OF THE CHURCH. 313 

immeasurably enhanced, if tliat were possible, by the 
boundless extent of her territory, on which, truly and 
indeed, the sun never sets. ''From Indus to the pole," 
from Kamtchatka to Chile, from Paris to Pekin; over 
every continent, in the isles of every ocean, by sea and 
river and lake; from the mountain-top and the valley's 
depth, from the desert's arid waste and the forest's green 
recesses; from all the surface of the earth, from all her 
tribes and peoples, go up at every hour the prayers of 
the Church, her holy hymns, her sacred chants, as she 
passes in succession through the different phases of her 
grand martyrology. 

Furthermore, how astonishingly varied are the cir- 
cumstances under which her holy feasts are solemnized! 
From the " dim and mighty minster of old time," 

" shadowy with remembrance 

Of the majestic past," 

wherein emperors or kings have worshipped for ages, 
at whose altar mitred prelates officiate, surrounded with 
all the dazzling pomp of the grandest of rituals; to the 
rude log-cabin in the woods of the New World, reared 
by the patient hands of the hardy settler from beyond 
the seas, or the newly-converted from the heathen — the 
very vestments of the humble missionary being the gift of 
charity — through all the degrees of ritualistic solemnity 
between these so opposite extremes, how wonderful is 
the picture presented to the eye of faith by the feasts 
and fasts of the year of the Church ! 

The year of the Church! what a circle to follow 
on its never-ceasing round! It is the year of the 
Triune God — the year of the world's Eedeemer — it 
is the year of St. Joseph, the glorious carpenter 
of Nazareth, the guardian of Jesus and Mary; it is 



314 THE YEAR OP THE CHUECH. 

the year of the prophets and the apostles, of the mar- 
tyrs, of the confessors, of the virgins, the year of all 
the saints; it is the year of the angels and archangels; 
it is the year of the whole heavenly court, whose hymns 
of praise it echoes and prolongs on earth, in Avhose 
homage, whose adoration, it joins at every moment of 
the day and night, merging the time of our earth's ex- 
istence in the limitless grandeur of the eternal years! 

Finally, the year of the Church is the year of Chris- 
tian art, furnishing the noblest themes, the highest in- 
spiration, for painting, for sculpture, for architecture, 
for music, for poetry. 

Michael Angelo and Haphael, and Fra Bartolomeo, 
and Rubens and Murillo, and all the great masters of 
the pencil and the brush, have left us on w^all and can- 
vas the wonders of the Christian year, the year of the 
Church; the greatest of sculptors of Christian ages have 
carved them in stone and cast them in bronze, in gold, 
and in silver; Beethoven and Haydn and Handel, Mo- 
zart and Mendelssohn and Mercadante, Bossini and 
Cherubini, have breathed its divine inspiration into 
strains of w^ondrous harmony that will live as long as 
the world; and Dante and Calderon and many another 
prince of song have chanted in the ear of time the lays 
of the Christian year, of that true Divina Comedia, in 
numbers of surpassing grandeur that have echoed and 
will echo through all the ages. 

And architecture — the poetry of stone, — who knows 
not how the year of the Church, her glorious martyr- 
ology and her wonderful rubric, have enriched the world 
with the grandest triumphs ever achieved by this most 
noble art, with structures that rival the ancient hills in 
solidity, and have lent new grace and dignity and beauty 
to this fair world of ours, exciting the wonder and the 
admiration of men in all succeeding ages! 



AS THE SEASONS COME AND GO. 315 

The arts may truly be called, as they have been 
called, the handmaids of religion, and being so, they 
are all most intimately connected with the grand epic 
of our martyrology, most wonderfully intertwined and 
associated wdtli the year of the Church. With it they 
go hand in hand through the whole world, refining, 
purifying, ennobling man, raising his thoughts and his 
hopes above the passing things of time, and fixing them 
on the great, the solemn truths of eternity. Such 
should be the office, the end and aim of Christian art, 
as it is the office, the end and the aim of the year of the 
Church. 



AS THE SEASONS COME AND GO. 

By Albert Pike. 
The fresh young leaves are coming, dear! 

In the genial jDrime of May; 
And the bees in the blooms are humming, dear! 

And the world is glad and gay; 
Is gay and glad, in the ripe bright Spring, 

Forgetting the Winter-snow; 
But Winter again the snows must bring, 

As the Seasons ebb and flow; 
And so the world goes round in a ring, 

As the Seasons come and go. 

As the Seasons come and go, and the years 

One after another die. 
With wan, sad faces wet with tears. 

And the laugh that ends in a sigh: 
In a sigh — and, sighing, our hopes and joys 

Pace after them, sad and slow; 
With our manhood's baubles and childhood's toys. 

As the Seasons ebb and flow; 
Leaving us only the pleasure that cloj^s, 

As the Seasons come and go. 



316 AS THE SEASONS COME AND GO, 

The lads are the fair girls wooing, dear! 

In the rath, glad days of Spring, 
And the greybeards for young loves suing, dear! 

"While thrushes, mating, sing. 
They are wise, — for the young grow old and grey, 

And Time is a fair girl's foe; 
And maids are fickle, and men will stray. 

As the Seasons ebb and flow; 
For Love's Forever is but a day, 

As the Seasons come and go. 

In the new Love's lap all the old are forgot, 

When the mouth new kisses craves; 
They are gone, like players remembered not, 

One after one, like the waves: 
On the dead Loves' ashes the live Loves tread, 

And into its fires we throw 
The false girl's picture, the tress of the dead. 

As the Seasons ebb and flow; 
Forgetting the once-sweet lips so red, 

As the Seasons come and go. 

No! no! — there were Loves we cannot forget. 

Charming faces, forever dear; 
Sweet lips, with whose kissing ours tingle yet, 

Loving words we shall always hear; 
Eyes that we always shall look into. 

Whether they love us or no; 
Adorations immortal, tender and true. 

Though the Seasons ebb and flow; 
Immortal, O darling! as mine for you, 

While the Seasons come and go. 



COMMON SENSE. 317 



COMMON SENSE. 

By Fe,edePv1c Satjkdees. 



Metaphysicians and philosophers dififer somewhat in 
their definitions of the good genius, familiarly known to 
US as Common Sense. It may seem strange that such 
learned authorities as Dugald Stewart, Newton, Locke, 
Beed, Berkeley, DesCartes, with some others, should 
have deemed it necessary to discuss a subject of such 
self-evident import. Our lexicographer, Worcester, 
gives the following explanation of the phrase: "The 
natural understanding or sagacity of mankind in general, 
in contradistinction to the endowments of genius or the 
requisitions of learning, which are possessed by com- 
paratively few; good sense in relation to common 
things." From this definition no one will dissent, but 
it seems to take for granted that all who are not espec- 
ially endowed with the higher gifts, have an intuitive 
possession of common sense, — a conclusion far from be- 
ing sustained by human experience. Coleridge some- 
where said, in effect, that thinking is a crime of which 
men in general are especially innocent. Although 
common sense may be an intuitive faculty, its exercise 
certainly involves thinking. Common sense is an en- 
dowment which cannot, therefore, be predicated of all 
who are Avithout the higher gifts of genius, although 
in the majority of instances it may. On the other hand, 
while it may be on the side of popular belief that 
learning and common sense are generally to be found 
in friendly alliance, yet it is not safe always to admit 
the validity of the proposition. That the faculty may 
be strengthened and improved in proportion as the 
mind can bring afc once under its review a larger num- 



318 COMMON SENSE. 

ber of ideas, and determine their accordance or dis- 
agreement, will be self-evident. Were we to reason 
over every premeditated act, liow slow w^onld be our 
progress ! liow many of life's great aims would be unat- 
tained ! Nor are we yet to abandon our reasoning fac- 
ulty, but to use it in connection with the safe sugges- 
tions of common sense. Its decisions, without very 
formal process of deduction, are often more accurate 
than those reached by an elaborate system of reasoning. 
Common sense is primarily devoted to the practical af- 
fairs of life, and whenever its plain dictates are dis- 
regarded, the penalty is inevitable. It has been well 
said, 

*' Some men go wrong with an ingenious skill; 
Bend the strict rule to their own crooked will; 
"While with a clear and shining lamp supplied. 
First put it out, then take it for a guide.'* 

Common sense may be styled the balance-wheel of the 
mind, keeping it in proper working order. It is equally 
important, as it is equally available, to rich and poor, 
the learned and the uncultivated; and none may ignore 
its teachings with impunity. Its possession is, there- 
fore, essential as well to the happiness of society as to 
its individual members. It is to humanity what in- 
stinct is to the animal creation. To cite the words of a 
recent essayist in the *' Saturday Heview," we might add 
that, "To know what we are and what we are designed 
for; to know what to do, and when and where and how 
to do it; to know what to expect and the means to be 
used to realize it — are some of the main offices of com- 
mon sense. It is the union of all the faculties, in obe- 
dient and contented service to the fixed laws of human 
existence." Thus it is apparent that discretion, merely, 
is not common sense. Men may acquire the former. 



COMMON SENSE. 319 

but tlie latter is more of an instinctive or intuitive fac- 
ulty. It cannot be denied that its possession is less 
frequently found in those who master their speculative 
difficulties, than in those who are never visited by such 
difficulties, but who take the gift of life as it is and 
adapt themselves to it. It has been well said that com- 
mon sense is ''the indispensable interpreter, the one 
commentator, without which no doctrine can hold its 
right place, no teaching convey its true meaning, no 
just inference be drawn, no wholesome lessons be gath- 
ered. It is the guardian of the mind; mere intel- 
lect without it is like a ship Avithout a rudder or a 
compass." 

Common sense, therefore, would seem to be a sine 
qua lion; yet how many persons go through life not 
caring for its possession. In every department of so- 
ciety we see illustrations of the follies — serious and 
comic — which such neglect engenders. For example, 
how often may be seen among the butterflies of fashion 
instances of the grotesque and absurd in costume, in 
extreme contrast with common sense and true taste! 
Some vapid and silly persons seem, indeed, to prefer 
to array themselves in direct antagonism with the sober 
judgment of reason and good sense. Their craving 
for whatever is unnatural and exaggerated, finds but 
little satisfaction in life's daily routine, whatever it may 
be, and they become disgusted Avith an existence Avhich 
to their diseased fancy is "weary, stale, flat and un- 
profitable." 

We can hardly over-estimate the injury which such a 
spirit engenders, however, or the degree to which it 
eats away the welfare and happiness of mankind. It is 
a secret but real antagonist to truth; for truth dwells 
not in extremes, but in averages. Experience is said 



320 COMMON sense; 

to keep an expensive school, yet slio seems to find 
plenty of pupils who are contented with her terms. But 
who among the thoughtful would willingly barter the 
sage companionship of the good genius, for the vagaries 
and factitious distinctions so coveted by the so-called 
heaii monde, when their attainment but too often fosters 
vanity in their possessor, or provokes envy in others. 
Look at the lady of common sense as she mingles with 
life's busy throng: 

"Meekly among the gathering crowd, 
A maiden fair, without pretence; 
And should you ask her humble name, 
She'd mildly whisper: Common Sense, 

Her modest garb draws every eye. 

Her ample cloak, her shoes of leather; 
To those who sneered, she simply said: 
' I dress according to the weather/" 

Common sense is twin-sister with sweet content, and 
they are always found in harmony and sympathy. Where 
they take up their abode, there the charm and crown of 
happy living is. There reign the queenly virtues and 
gentle charities of domestic life — all unknown, it may 
be, in their unobtrusiveness — to the outer world. How 
much of integrity and earnest purpose of kindness and 
delicate feeling, lives and bears its rich fruitage in such 
a charmed circle ! Such common-sense people may be 
characterized by the superficial and hollow-hearted 
votaries of the world as common-place and prosaic. 
Their heau ideal seems to consist in whatever is excit- 
ing and strange, extraordinary and extravagant. Such 
dream away existence in indolence and inertia, looking 
at life through the distorted lens of a diseased and ro- 
mantic idealism. To such we commend the needful 



COMMON SENSE. 321 

habit of self-culture, and that much neglected, if not 
lost art — the art of thinking, and the suggestive lines 
that follow: 

" So should we live, that every hour 

May die, as dies the natural flower — 

A life-reviving thing of power; 

That every thought, and every deed 

May hold within itself the seed 

Of future good and future need.'"' 

Instances of the fatal eijfects of the disregard of com- 
mon sense are on record in all histories, in morals, lit- 
erature, sciences and social life. For the space of more 
than six centuries, circumstances which excite ridicule 
for their absurdity, or regret on account of their injus- 
tice, fill and disgrace the annals of Europe. The trial 
by judicial combat, the various appeals to accidental 
circumstances for the decision of the most important 
causes, the right of private war, the extravagant pre- 
tensions of chivalry, the gross, complicated impositions 
of the arbitrary power, and the unrelenting rigor of the 
feudal system, are only so many outrages on the ordi- 
nary judgment of mankind. And if we turn to the classic 
ages, among the treasured literary productions of the 
ancients, what noble exceptions do the works of Aris- 
totle and Plato form to the absurdities which were in- 
volved in the ethical systems, and perplexing and sub- 
tle doctrines of the academies! To systems so repugnant 
to common sense, the teachings of Socrates, however, 
constitute a memorable contrast. Even in our day, are 
we not surrounded with instances of learning allied to 
lunacy, or what seems suggestive of something akin to 
it? With the higher order of intellectual endowments, 
it is natural to expect to find that of matured wisdom; 
but as the admixture of common sense is essential to 
21 



322 LA roi, l'esperance, et la charite. 

the union, the expectation is too frequently doomed to 
be disappointed. 

Genius and brilliant talents are glorious gifts, and 
hostages to fame and fortune; but for the duties and 
demands of daily life — if the endowments must be di- 
vided — commend us to a goodly store of common sense. 



LA FOI, L'ESPEEANCE,ET LA CHAEITE. 

By Madame Amelia Mezzaha. 

DiEU vous enleve votre mere, 

Et vous, pauvres petits enfants, 

Vous restez seuls sur la terre; 

Sans pain, ni toit, toujours souffrants! 

— " Non," dit tout bas a son oreille, 

Un ange pres d'elle arrete; 

" Tu meurs, mais moi sur eux je veille: 

On me nomme La Chakite." 

Je te benis! Mais dans leur ^me 
Qui semera le pur froment? 
Qui leur dira de quelle flamme 
Doit bruler un coeur innocent ? — 
*' Repose en paix/' lui dit encore 
Une autre voix, '' ce sera moi; 
Le Dieu que I'univers adore. 
Sera leur Dieu: je suis La Foi." 

Merci! Mais si le meme orage 
Les repousse aussi, loin du bord, 
Qui ranimera leur courage, 
Et saura leur montrer le port? — 
*' Moi, I'ange de la Delivrance, 
Moi qui veux te fermer les yeux; 
Dont la main t'ouvrira les cieux, 
Et qu'on appelle L'Esperance." 



THE FALLEN NEST. 323 



THE FALLEN NEST. 

By THoaiAS Vv". Hanshew. 

All day the slanting bars of sunlight have flashed 
through the interlaced boughs of pine and maple, oak 
and hickory. But as evening draws on, the dark clouds 
have piled across the gray and golden horizon, the soft 
sigh of the summer breeze has grown into a roar, as 
the forest monarchs bow their stately heads. Night 
comes on. The lark has long since quitted the em- 
pyrean, and sought its low-lying nest; the robin has 
ceased to whistle in the emerald haze of the pine 
boughs, and now lies over her warm eggs, and blinks her 
sleepy eyes at the storm that causes her home to 
sway to and fro with its every gust. The pelting rain 
drives down in straight, glistening lines from the angry 
heavens, and nature seems preparing herself for a sec- 
ond Deluge. For an instant there is a lull, then the 
wild fury of the storm breaks forth with treble violence. 
The dark branches toss, heave, and rustle one against 
the other, and a sharp screech breaks even above the 
noise of the elements, as the robin's nest is hurled from 
its feeble hold, turns over in mid-air, and empties its 
contents upon the hard earth, over which the screaming 
mother hovers and gazes at her mangled treasures. The 
birds in the other trees hear her agonizing screeches, 
and even in the face of the storm, fly and seek to 
console her. 

Summer drifts into Autumn. Autumn merges into 
Winter, and the earth lies slumbering under its snowy 
mantle. Piece by piece the hidden nest falls into de- 
cay, straw by straw it drops asunder, and when the 
rivers break their icy bondage, and gush with a low 



324 THE FALLEN NEST. 

murmur of cleliglit through the faintly-green dells; Avhen 
the early flowers lift their fragrant heads to the gentle 
breeze, and the warmth of the spring sunlight hathes 
the earth, only a mangled, shapeless mass marks the 
spot where the nest fell. 

So it is in life. Who has not possessed a nest — a 
fond hope ? And, alas ! who has not beheld it dashed 
from its feeble hold and hurled in a heap of ruins to the 
cold earth? 

The butterfly friends of society will turn away with a 
" Poor fellow ! his nest has fallen, but he never was one 
of our set," and the few who, perchance, do feel for the 
owner, forget in an hour that his nest ever existed. 
Soon Time, like the snow-drift, covers the mound. 
Piece by piece that, too, falls into decay, until the light 
of other days reveals the shapeless mass — the ruined 
nest. But even in the midst of joy and plenty, the 
mind will drift back, and among the many pleasures of 
to-day, we sigh for the one lost long ago. And who 
shall say it is not so with the robin ? Who shall say 
that sometime in later life, with her twittering young 
around her, there is not one bitter memory of the fallen 
nest? 

Is it not a glorious thing, then, to go through life, 
eyes for the sightless, and feet for the lame ? 

So when we see a fellow-being in distress, let us not 
pass him by with a word of pity; rather let us stop a 
moment and help him to raise his fallen nest. 



HOW LILIAN LEFT US. 325 



HOW LILIAN LEFT US. 

By Epes Sahgent. 

Bright issue of a midniglit thunder-shower. 

The purple morning broke on tree and flower; 

'Twas early June; mildl}'- tbe west wind blew 

The well-washed foliage through, 

Scattering around the drops, and fanning dry 

Each little leaf that courted the blue sky; 

"Waving the uncut grass upon the lawn. 

And wafting all the odors of the dawn. 

The orchard grounds were white 

With blossoms that had fallen in the night; 

The birds made proclamation 

Tuneful, of their delight, to all creation. 

The little wild flowers meek 

Looked all the gladness that they could not speak; 

The violet, still blooming in the shade; 

The scarlet columbine, bedecked with gold. 

In rocky clefts, secure from wind and cold; 

The anemone, of every gust afraid — • 

All by the rain-storm seemed the happier made, 

Now that the earth in sunshine was arrayed. 

Behold that cottage with the pines behind, 

Its portico with honeysuckle twined; 

Thence, looking eastward, haply you may see — 

If from all blur of fog the air is free — 

A shimmer of the ocean's brilliancy. 

Fair spot! there surely dwelleth happiness! 

There cluster the amenities that bless! 

Affliction spares its modest sanctity; 

Trouble, disease, and discord pass it by. 



326 HOW LILIAN LEPT US. 

Ah, trust not to the outward! There, even there, 

Death 's angel finds a flower it may not spare. 

Into that room, facing the orient, 

Enter, and you will hear a low lament 

"Wrung from a mother's heart; she bows her head, 

As if refusing to be comforted. 

A little girl, in pain unwonted lying. 

Says, " Dear mamma, what makes me feel so strange?" 

" My darling,'" sobs the mother, " you are dying! " 

"Dying? but what is that?'' "For you, a change 

From earth to heaven, my sweet." "But where is heaven?' 

" Darling, 'tis where God and His angels dwell; 

"Where to the pure in heart great joy is given." 

" I do not care to go; I'm very well 

Here where I am. But could you go with me?" 

" Darling, that cannot be." 

" You, papa, will jou go with me ? — I 'm your pet." 

" My child! my child! they do not want me yet." 

" But some one must — I cannot go alone 

Where I'm not known. 

I 'm not quite old enough to go to heaven — 

I'm not yet seven. 

My own laburnum tree is now in bloom. 

And I have just fixed up my little room; 

And then my kitten — surely it will grieve 

If I am made to leave. 

You will go with me, brother, jou will go ? 

You used to lead me through the woods, you know, 

And show me where the bluest violets grow. 

You cannot ? Sister Ellen, how can I 

Go all alone ? Why, sister, do you cry ?" 

And w^ondering w^hat should cause them all to weep. 
The troubled maiden sank at length to sleep — 



HOW LILIAN LEFT US. 327 

A sleep profound. After a little while 

There j^layed upou her lips a holy smile, 

And her face seemed transfigured. Then she woke, 

And in a tone of exultation spoke: 

*' O, mamma! papa! I have seen them all — 

Grandpa, aunt Martha, and my cousin Paul! 

They told me not to worry; they would come 

And take me safely home — to my new home. 

Tou need not go, since they don't want you yet. 

r ni not afraid, pajDa! Your little pet 

Is not afraid. They will be with me — all — 

Grandpa, aunt Martha, and my cousin Paul! 

And they all know the way. So do not grieve 

Because the good God wants me now to leave. 

Soon you will come and join us — so they say — 

And we shall be as glad as flowers in May.'" 

And prattling thus, amid the general grief. 

The little child at length, 
In one last sigh of rapture and relief. 

Seemed to give up the visible body's strength, 
And go, serene and meek, 

Perhaps not all alone, 

Into the great unknown, 
"With not a tear-drop on the mortal cheek. 

A bird, upon her own laburnum tree. 

Poured out its very heart in sudden glee; 

The pansies, in her strip of garden, lifted 

Their velvet eyes, and the white blossoms drifted — 

Within her little room 

The dolls and books were as she placed them last; 
And all the grief and gloom 

W'^ere in the hearts that clung to her so fast. 
Grieve not, reft hearts! Your darling is not dead; 
She lives a fuller life : be comforted ! 



328 HOW LILIAN LEFT US. 

"Weep not, fond parents, as if hope were ended. 
When from the mortal form the life departs: 

Your little one goes forth not unattended, 
Beyond are gentle hands and loving hearts. 

"Where, think you, are the saintly ones uncounted, 
Whose joy it was on earth to give relief? 

Deaf to our woes, aspiring have they mounted 
Beyond the hearing of a voice of grief ? 

Believe it not ! To help God's whole creation 
Is heaven for those who nearest draw to Him; 

To think of one, lost beyond all salvation, 

Would make the inmost heaven seem void and dim. 

To lift the soul to its own purpose nigher. 
To check the erring, the corrupt to heal; 

A thirst for saving wisdom to inspire — 
Such is their high prerogative, they feel! 

Mother, thy child is safe in their warm folding 
Who to thy tenderest yearning can respond; 

An angel arm is thy beloved one holding — 
Shall heavenly love than earthly be less fond ? 



BIBLIOMANIA. 329 



BIBLIOMANIA. 

By Alfred E. "Whitaker. 

"Be pleasant, brave, and fond of books," was the 
precept of one of America's greatest lawyers to bis chil- 
dren; and by all youth let it be remembered and its 
injunctions obeyed, for it is worthy, and will richly re- 
ward with its consolation, in future years. 

Love of books is, indeed, one of the pleasantest, 
most beneficial and altogether most satisfying emotions 
in which mankind can indulge. It is an incentive to 
youth, it is life and growth to manhood, and an infinite 
solace to old age. Says a late writer, "Be the taste for 
books a mania, a hobby, a passion, or what it may, 
what other taste is more rational or more delightful?" 

Tastes differ in different individuals. Different minds 
incline toward different objects. Hobbies, of every 
conceivable kind, have been ridden, and manias have 
raged, at various periods in the world's history, for 
almost every object under the sun. Some two hundred 
and fifty years ago, the so-called "Tulip-mania" raged 
in Holland, when the fabulous sum of $7,500 was, in 
one instance, paid for a single bulb. Vratches have 
been objects of search for passionate hunters, of which 
one of the most noted collectors was the Duke of Wel- 
lington. Joseph Gillott, the famous steel-pen maker, 
was a collector of violins, though no player himself. A 
celebrated basso had walking-sticks for a hobb}-; an- 
other is recorded as having an extensive collection of 
hangmen's halters; a Parisian poured forth his passion 
in warming-pans; a New Yorker amassed a collection of 
150 snuff-boxes, 15 watches, seals, brooches, etc., while 
a London banker died the fortunate (?) possessor of over 



330 BIBLIOMANIA. 

300 writing and dressing-cases. Double liobby-riders, 
or persons with a mania for two or more classes of ob- 
jects, are not uncommon. Gillott combined with his 
violins, paintings as well. Snuff-boxes and walking- 
sticks are found together, and watches with both. Coins 
have been a favorite hobby, and enormous prices have 
been paid for single specimens. Among the young, 
postage-stamps form, perhaps, the most popular col- 
lections. The ceramic fever, or mania for pottery and 
porcelain, is a very old one, and has had many revivals, 
and to-day the passion for Sevres and Satsuma rages 
with renewed fierceness. A few years since, at a sale 
in London, a pair of small vases, eleven inches high, 
sold for £8825, or forty-four thousand one hundred and 
twenty -five dollars. 

Thus might the list of hobbies be extended, to show 
how diverse and restless is human passion. We are all 
natural collectors, and can only realize the collector's 
true delight when our hobby is found and equipped. 

But, as books are intrinsically superior to and above 
the violin, the watch, the Satsuma bowl, or the Sevres 
vase, so is the love of books, both in its simple exercise 
and in its ennobling results, above and beyond the mere 
passion expended upon a collection of warming-pans 
or earthen jars. The lover of ceramics claims, and 
truly, that his collection acquaints him wdth the arts, 
customs and manners of other peoples, and thus affords 
him instruction; but hoolcs bring you face to face with 
men, — the true representatives of race and age, — their 
lives and very thoughts enlighten and instruct you 
through plain and delightful intercourse. It has been 
aptly said, "As bread and meat are food for the body, 
so books are pabulum for the mind." Other tastes are 
the conserves and confections of the mind: they may 



BIBLIOMANIA. 331 

please it for a -while, but for solid nourishment the in- 
tellect must fall back on books. 

The potter's handiwork may contain in its make a na- 
tion's history, but it is a sealed packet. A book, in its 
open page is a revelation to the understanding, and 
he '*wlio runs may read." The sphere of books is 
boundless, and open to all. Aside from the abiding 
usefulness and benefit accruing to the &oo^-collector, 
but unknown to the mere novelty or curio-hunter, there 
is also present to the former, in his occupation, the 
same fascination, which is, to a great extent the main- 
spring to tije latter. Rivalry and competition for a 
coveted copy or edition abound, and the prices books 
have brought in open sales, attest the fierceness of the 
contest for their possession. 

The struggle for the Valdarfer edition of Boccaccio, 
at the sale of the library of the Duke of Boxburghe, 
cost Earl Spencer eleven thousand three hundred dol- 
lars. A small quarto printed at Metz in 1516 was re- 
cently sold in Paris for two thousand two hundred and 
twenty dollars. A Mazarine Bible brought in the same 
city, seventeen thousand dollars. Works of such rarity, 
that the possessor of every copy in existence is a mat- 
ter of common knowledge to all book-hunters, when 
offered for sale, command great prices, and hence con- 
stant Avatchfulness on the part of the collector is requi- 
site to success. 

But not in its fascination to the collector, not in the 
gratification of present indulgence alone, lies the supe- 
riority of Biblio over other manias, but in the great and 
enduring pleasure derived from association and inter- 
course with his possessions. His conquests are not 
cold idols of stone and painted clay, but living thought 
and soul with which to commune. The testimony of 



332 LONG TOM. 

thousands bears witness to the comforts and blessings 
derived from books. {Said Frederick the Great in his 
youth, " Books make up no small part of human happi- 
ness;" and in old age, ^* My latest passion will be for 
literature." 

How then, can we compare the collector of books, in 
his occupation, with the accumulator of coios or curios- 
ities? As well for value and usefulness, compare the 
library of the one with the museum of the other. 

Let our youth cultivate in their nature the love of 
books, a love based upon their inner merit and worth, 
upon the delight and information they are able to afford; 
and the inherent mania for collection will the more nat- 
urally expend its vitality in amassing objects the most 
worthy, and which alone can afford us the greatest 
possible pleasure and good — namely, books. 



LONG TOM. 

By Hector A. Stuart ("Caliban.") 

Good-bye, pards, Long Tom is going, 

He must leave the Yuba now; 
Silent rest while it is flowing; 

He at last to death must bow. 
Here, beside the golden river, 

in this log-hut, he must die, 
While the pines above him shiver. 

And old friends in anguish sigh. 

Hit, you know, in that last battle 
"We had with the lujun braves, 

Whar' I heard my last gan rattle, 
"VVhar' we filled a dozen graves. 



LONG TOM. 333 



Thar' I fought, and in that tussle, 
Eight beside old '' Fox-skin " stood; 

Thar' I heard an arrow rustle, 
Coming from the cotton-wood. 

You knew " Fox-skin;" on the Feather, 

When I lay with ague sick. 
He stood by me, thar' together, 

Night and day with me he'd stick. 
Yes, he nursed me like a mother — 

Bless that name, it makes me cry — 
Thar' s on earth no such another : 

Oh, that mothers e'er should die ! 

" Fox-skin" watched me; full of feeling. 

He alone did wdth me stay. 
Close from me the fact concealing 

That the boys had gone away; 
Gone because the red-skins, rising, 

Meant the camp to hustle out. 
And already, ill devising, 

Prowded the skirting hills about. 

Thar' I lay, a month or over, 

" Fox-skin " always nigh at hand; 
Till I turned on the recover. 

Steering from the ghostl}' land. 
Then when I could use my rifle, 

I went out to join the band 
Led by '* Fox-skin," who' d not trifle 

When a case would grit demand. 

Wall, we fought, as 3'ou remember. 
Right among the cotton-trees. 

On the last day of December, 
In a fierce, snow-laden breeze; 



334: LONG TOM. 

From Nevada^s summits blowing, 
It came burdened with a tone 

On my heart a dread bestowing, 
It before had never known. 

Still, the skirmish went on howling, 

Arrows often near me came; 
But I kept my yager rolling. 

And, I guess, corralled some game. 
But at last I heard an arrow 

From a grove of cottons hum, 
Aimed at " Fox-skin," sure as faro, 

I believed his time had come. 

Quick as lightning, from the cover, 

I sprang out to stop the dart; 
But I failed — it whistled over, 

'Scaped me, and went through his heart ! 
Thar' he fell; but quickly raising 

On the clump my rifle long, 
"Whar' a camp-fire, dimly blazing. 

Showed a mighty active throng, 

I let drive, and by the howling 

Knowed I had some evil wrought; 
But ill-luck was o'er me scowling — 

My last battle had been fought. 
I was soon to cross the river. 

Leave the Land of Gold behind, 
Whar' no shaft from Injun quiver 

Could a fatal lodg'ment find. 



•■&' 



As I rose to fire another 

Telling shot, an arrow came 

From the brave who shot the other. 
And as deadly in its aim. 



LONG TOM. 335 

Stricken, I, near '' Fox-skin " bleeding, 

Sank unconscious from the strife, 
Of myself meanwhile unheeding, 

Grieved I had not saved his life. 

Now, my pards, you see me dying, 

Going to that unknown shore 
Whar' the soul, no longer sighing. 

Rests untroubled evermore. 
Thar' I see old " Fox-skin " standing 

On the margin of the stream; 
He has safely made a landing — 

I will join him — bat, I dream! 

Lay me, friends, beside the river, 

Whar' the pines may dirges sound; 
Whar' the spear-topt rushes quiver. 

And the gurgling eddies bound. 
Lay me, friends, whar' " Fox-skin" slumbers, 

He for whom I almost died; 
Whar' no coward, who earth cumbers, 

Shall e'er rest our dust beside ! 



336 LITTLE RED-FOOT. 



LITTLE KED-FOOT. 

By "Olive Thorne. " (Mrs. Harriet M. Miller.) 

In the sands of the sea-shore, where every wave covers 
him with water and then receding, leaves him exposed 
to the mercy of man, is an interesting little creature 
with one red foot. He lives in a solid house of stone, 
elegantly fluted and adorned, or protected, by polished 
spiny points, and painted in bands of two shades of 
rich reddish-brown. 

This house, curious to say, is in two exactly similar 
parts, and opens, Avhen its owner washes to take the air, 
in the middle, through its entire length, as a book opens 
on its hinge or back. When the house is closed and 
its tenant not at home to visitors, it looks on the side 
like a round stone, and on the end it presents the shape 
of a heart, which circumstance gives the name of Car- 
dium, from a Greek word meaning the heart, to the 
family, though out of books it is known as the Cockle. 

The dweller in the stone house has no need to hide 
himself. He w^ears a beautiful mantle of brilliant 
orange and pearly white color, decorated with rich 
fringes, and is possessed of a most wonderful foot. He 
has but one, it is true — he is a monopod — but this one 
is more useful than two, or even four of some creatures. 

When he desires to move about — one can hardly say 
to walk — he opens wide his two pretty shells, thrusts 
out his long, tapering, brilliant scarlet foot, four inches 
from the door, with a knee in the proper place and a 
flexible point instead of a toe, and feels about wdth the 
sensitive tip for a stone or something hard. On touch- 
ing a stone, the toe presses against it, the whole foot is 
suddenly made stifi*, and away flops Mr. Cockle, shell 



LITTLE RED-FOOT. 337 

and all, a foot or more away. Repeating this process, 
lie can get about as much as he likes, especially as he 
isn't a great traveler and not in the least particular 
where his leaps bring up, and he belongs to a family 
which always get around by jerks. 

Thus the one foot is all he needs for moving; and to 
assist in burying himself in the sand, which is much 
more important to him, nothing could be more perfect. 
To accomplish this the cockle thrusts the pointed coral 
foot straight down into the soft, wet sand as far as he 
can, and bends the flexible tip sideways, to get a hold. 
He then suddenly contracts the organ through its whole 
length, which draws the shell to the edge of the hole, 
with its sharp edges cutting the sand. Another push 
of the foot and another haul take him a little deeper, 
and so he goes on till he is buried out of sight; the 
whole operation taking but a few seconds. 

The bivalve family, to which he belongs, is extremely 
useful; eating everything, no matter how small, w^hich 
would make the water impure. It is a curious experi- 
ment to put a healthy bivalve into a dish of water deeply 
colored with indigo, and see it gradually grow lighter 
and finally become perfectly clear, as the creature ab- 
sorbs every particle of the coloring substance. 

Thespinous cocklesare foundchieflyon theDevonshire 
coast, in England, where the natives give them the vul- 
gar name of "red noses," and are very fond of them, 
alas! fried in a batter of bread crumbs. 



22 



338 CONSTANTIA. 

CONSTANTIA. 

By Rev. Dr. Bernard O'Eeillt. 

(A fragment from an unpublished drama.) 

CoNSTANTi A, the daughter of Don Bernal de Cordova, an officer in high 
command in the West Indies, has, with her mother and two attendants, 
Juan and Anita, been kidnapped by Mexicans on the coast of Cuba, and 
carried ojff to Mexico. There, after some time, the mother dies, and 
Constantia, taken into favor by Montezuma's empress, grows up to 
womanhood, revered by the natives for her skill in the healing art, her 
kindness to the poor, and her uncommon beauty. 

Marina, is supposed to be a half sister of Montezuma, as madly 
jealous of his love for Constantia, as she is ambitious to see Cortes and 
her own son by liim sovereigns of Mexico. 

Act I. — A Temple hewn in the solid rock, amid a grove of gigantic 
cypresses. 

The scene displays the interior of this edifice. 

Coupled columns of red jasper with gilt capitals, support a lofty arch 
beneath which is the yawning entrance to the Oracular Cave. A dark 
curtain fringed with red cover, runs the whole breadth of the arch; it is 
behind this veil the human sacrifice takes place during the incantation. 
Immediately in front of this entrance, stands an altar on which the 
perpetual fire is fed night and day b^'' the attendant priests. In the 
middle of the altar is the Brazier, on which were thrown the bleeding 
hearts of the human victims sacrificed. 

Between two pairs of coupled columns on each side of the central arch 
over the cavern, were tripods, with fire on which incense and richest 
perfumes were continually thrown by the Ministers. 

Single pilasters of the same red jasper run down both sides of the 
building, with gilt capitals; the spaces between them are fitted with 
sacrificial scenes. 

The architrave and cornice are of green serpentine; and the frieze of 
black marble inlaid in bright red and green, with gigantic figures of 
serpents. 

Prince Ayotla, the High Priest, over his rich princely robes, wears a 
scarlet cloak, and a coronal of green and yellow plumes. 
The Emperor and Kings wear their state costumes. 
Ayotla and two assistant priests, stand on the left of the spectator, 



CONSTANTIA. 339 

about two feet from the altar; Ketzal and two assistants, stand on the 
right. 

Montezuma and Tecama, with their chamberlains, are between Ayotla 
and the front of the stage. Coulava and Guatemozin, with their ofificers, 
front them on the other side. A double rank of priests extend behind 
the high priests and royal personages, down to the entrance. 

Marina, in her disguise, is seen in a dark corner near the altar. (7ow- 
stantia, conspicuous only by her blue plumes, wears a dark mantle, and 
is behind the Emperor, almost concealed among his suite. 

While Ayotla chaunts each verse of the Incantation, he holds up his 
right hand. The chorus of priests, while answering, do the same. 

The only light comes from the Brazier and the Tripods. 

Scene 4. — Temple of Tezcaputli (or tlie God of Death); in 
tlie Palace of ChepuUepec. 

Montezuma, the Kings of Tezcuco, Tacuba, Istapal; Prin- 
ces Ayotla and Ketzal; Constantia, Marina; priests, guards 
and attendants. 

Ayotla (High Priest). 

Great Spirit who dividest with the day, 
The worship of each faithful Aztec soul, 
The sky, the blooming earth owns thy control; 

Deep ocean, fire and death feel thy dread sway. 

Chorus of Priests. 

From thine eternal seat. 

Amid earth's central gloom. 
Hear thou thy people's prayer; 
Avert our monarch's doom! 
(They throw incense on the Brazier and on the flames of 
the Tripods, which causes the light to flare up dismally.) 

Ayotla. 

Within thy realms, fate weaves the thread 
Of men and kings, and empires' destinies; 
Nor gods nor mortals 'scape these fixed decrees. 

Man's life is but thy boon, to thee belong the dead. 



340 CONSTANTIA. 

Chorus of Priests. 

Each day we honor thee 

With frequent sacrifice, 

(A shriek and death-groan are heard within.) 

Hear now the victim's moan, 

And at the sound arise ! 

(Priests come from behind the veil, one bearing- in a golden 
vessel human blood, still warm from the veins; an- 
other two palpitating human hearts, in a golden censer, 
which they present to the High Priest.) 

Ayoila (Sprinkling the blood on the altar, the brazier, the 
tripods, and at the entrance to the cave). 

The life-blood thou didst warm, we pour to thee; 
(Placing the hearts in the flaming brazier.) 

The hearts it filled we on thine altar burn; 

The spirit Avhich thou gav'st we here return; 
We speed it with our prayer. Arise! Propitious be! 

(The ground is shaken as by the throes of an earthquake, a 
mighty wind wars among the trees outside, and proceeds 
like a loud moaning sound fiom the cave; the fires flare 
up fitfully.) 

Chorus of Priests (all kneeling). 

O King of Night and Death, 

Arise ! Appear ! 
Thine own lov'd people call; 

Dispel their monarch's fear! 

(Amidst the earthquake and the roar of the tempest, the 
flame on the altar and the tripods suddenly seems to ex- 
pire; a dim effulgence appears at the entrance to the cave, 
and a dark figure, with a bright purple star on its head, 
rises slowly, until it seems to stand ou the altar over the 
censer and brazier. At that moment Ayotla and his at- 
tendants withdraw to the right aud left, and Montezuma 
with the kings approach the altar.) 



CONSTANTIA. 341 

Montezuma (holding in Lis hand the amulet). 

Dark spirit, whatso'er thou be, I know not; 

Thou art my father's god, for ages here 

By them worshipp'd and invok'd. To them thou gavest 

In war to be victorious; in peace to be 

By all men honor'd and obey'd. And now, 

In this new danger to my joeople's freedom 

And my ancestral throne, I come to thee; 

I whom men call the Descendant of the Sun, 

And on thine altar, here, and at thy feet, 

I place this heaven-sent pledge of all my power. 

Speak to me! Say, who are these foreign men? 

And what forebodes their coming to my subjects 

And to me ? 

Ayoila (sternly to the Emperor). 
Kneel! 

(At this instant Constantia, letting fall her dark mantle, 
comes forward, seizes the Emperor's right hand, and 
holds up in her own a small golden cross.) 

Constantia. 

Kneel not! Adore him not. 
My Lord! And thou, rebellious, fallen, and false! 
Bevere this sign, and by His dread name adjured. 
Speak but the truth to these deluded men; 
Nor now presume to cheat their ignorance 
By lying oracles ! Speak ! 

Spirit. 
The winds bear with them on their plumes unseen, 
The fertilizing germs for tree and shrub; 
The ocean tides convey from shore to shore, 
All unknowing, the seeds of life and plenty 
For the nations. He who thrones within the halls 
Built by Asaya, and his blind companions. 
Bear with them truth life-giving. Insects in the night, 



342 CONSTANTIA. 

They give forth light, darkling themselves the while. 
They must go hence, but surely to return. 
Montezuma! We meet ere yet another sun 
Hath risen on Anahwa. But not with thee 
Shall end great Tenoch's line, nor yet with thee 
Shall fall the imperial Aztec power. 
All else a veil impenetrable hides; 
And one far mightier further speech forbids. 

Montezuma. 

Tell me yet one thing more. "Whose then the hand 
By which I'm doomed to fall ? 

Spirit. 
A hand by thee 
Oft clasp'd in loving childhood and in youth, 
Shall wing the shaft, 

Montezuma. 
Enough! E'en though I die 
With me yet dieth not the liberty 
Or greatness of my native land. With me 
Ye perish not, my brothers and my kinsmen! 
Nay, fain am I to think thou spokest false, 
O ! Dark One, when thou saidst that by the hand 
Of mine own lov'd ones — 

Coulava (interrupting). 

Say, that he doth lie, 
God though he be, if he would intimate 
That this my heart could plot 'gainst thee, my brother. 
Or that this good right hand should e'er be raised 
But to defend thy throne and thee. And so 
I say for thee, Tabuca, and for Tecama, 
Nay, for all who now indignaut hear 
My voice of protestation. 

Guatemozin and Tecama. 

Aye! False! Ealse! 



OUR IDYL. 343 

Montezuma. 

Be silent, all! I need no words to prove 

Your truth and love, whose blood on many a field 

Hath flow'd for me. Welcome to me is death, 

If it secure the common happiness! 

And thou, O Spirit! who art but the slave 

Or servant of One mightier; I may 

Or may not, as it listeth me, believe 

The doom thou hast pronounced. Yet, I thank thee. 

Henceforth I fain Avould learn more of Him 

"Who is thy master. Now go to Him ! 

(The Spirit disappears amid thunder and lightning and the 
tempest's uproar.) 



OUR IDYL. 

By Williabi R. Etstee,. 

Bar out the night! bar out the cold! 

Bar out the storm}'- weather! 
And whilst the moments surge along. 

Bead in the coals together. 

At first we talked of what had been. 

And more of what might be; 
Awhile she softly hummed a song 

Of moonlight and the sea. 
A bit Ave both all silent sat. 

Then I from book read story 
Made up, as such things often are, 

Of love and war and glory; 
Whilst out and out her fingers flew. 

As nearer ends her sewing. 
And still the clock ticked slowly on. 

And still the coals were glowing. 



34:4: OUR IDYL. 

But when, at last, her work laid by, 

Secure from each beholder, 
I found her cheek so close to mine, 

Her brown curls swept my shoulder; 
Her lithe, slim hand, inclosed in mine, 

Lay lig'ht as airy feather; 
And thus we, whilst the hours drift by. 

Read from the coals together: 

"I see grim w^alls of castle old, 

And walks and groves orne, 
With grand old hills that, sloping down, 

Seem melting- in the bay. 
I see a white and joyless face, 

With weary, hungry eyes, 
Look, longing, from a lattice, east. 

To see tJie darkness rise. 
Along the sear and level beach 

The fishers' boats are tied; 
Their low huts shimmering on the shore, 

Their nets and sails spread wide. 
W^atch now the redly glowing coals — 

These old scenes change to new. 
So, whilst the shadows pass before. 

Say what they show to you." 

Low drooped her head, her voice came soft 
As bird-song on the heather. 

Whilst, from the scene I penciled out, 
She wove this tale to^-ether: 



'& 



*' Fair Maude dwells in the castle grey. 
And I beside the sea; 
High lords and ladies all are they, 
Whilst fisher-folks are we; 



OUll IDYL. 345 

But, Maude, my heart I would not give, 

For all you see or own, 
Since mine no mortal could deceive, 

Whilst yours is turned to stone. 

" Fair Maude has hands so small and white, 

That shame mine own so rough; 
Fair Maude with silk and gem is dight, 

"Whilst I wear coarsest stuff; 
Yet, Maude, by all my hopes of bliss, 

Our ways I would not change! 
I would not lose a life like this. 

Through all your halls to range. 

*' Our boys are shouting on the shore, 

As sail the boats to sea. 
Yet every night, as night before. 

My love returns to me. 
But you alone may silent sit, 

And dream what may not be; 
The old care changes not a whit. 

Your love is lost to thee. 

*' So keep your gems and castle gray, 
Maude, daughter of the Earl; 
Whilst I'll go singing all the day, 
A happy fisher's girl. 

*' That for your castles ! But there comes 

To me a wilder dream: 
I see a cold and stagnant flood. 

And corpses in the stream — 
Corpses with blanch'd, ah ! cleath-blanch'd lips, 

And staring, hideous eyes. 
Long, tangled, floating, drenched hair, 

And leaden breasts, that rise 
From the green waves, with sullen flash 



346 OUE IDYL. 

And phosphorescent light, 
To, onward in their loathsome grave. 

Go surging through the night. 
No fringe of daylight in the west 

AVhere toss the angry skies; 
But far off, in the ragged clouds. 

Dim moonbeams struggling rise. 
A wall or rocks where breakers beat 

To moanings of the gale. 
And lone, on the distant sea, 

Fleet floats a phantom sail. 

" Dearest, come closer ! Hold me fast ! 

Say ' darling ' once again ! 
Yon wild arm'd tide that's rushing past 

Would bear me to the main ! 
Sweep back the fears that dark dream brings. 

And hold me from that sea — 
That bitter, bitter death in life. 

To live away from thee. 
See ! In those, redly lowering coals, 

I know not what they mean, 
I see your face and mine, alas! 

I see a gulf between. 
Ah, my! You ask too much from me. 

No pictured page it teems; 
How can I trace strange visions out. 

When you are all my dreams ? 
Waking or dreaming, woe or weal, 

Howe'er fate's tide may roll, 
Thine to the end I fain would be. 

And give you all my soul!" 

Wailed out these words, and on my neck 

Plashed drearily her tears. 
Whilst 'gainst my bosom strong I felt 

The surf-beat of her fears. 



OUB IDYL. 347 

'* Look up, dear heart, nor idly dream 

Of woes that will not be. 
Nor blind your eyes with tears of dread 

For that tempestuous sea! 
Sweet soul, have faith! I will not change, 

Till heart and pulse be still; 
The voice that now my spirit wakes 

Fore'er my soul must thrill! 

" Round thee my arms are truly drawn, 

They are for thee alone. 
And waves of fate, I breasting, back. 

But make thee more my own. 
Dream then upon my loyal heart, 

But not of doubts and fears; 
Dream of the one who loves you best, 

Of love that lasts for years; 
Dream of our happy psalm of life. 

Whose song is just begun. 
Henceforth, no waves of fate can part 

These hearts, forever one." 

As sunburst through the clouded skies, 

Sweeps back the stormy weather, 
So we, at last, uudoubting read 

Our fortunes there together. 



348 A EEMAllKABLE CAREEK. 



A REMARKABLE CAREER. 

By George Francis Train. 

What possible use can be made of the literary con- 
tribution of a man wlio never committed any crime, 
and yet has been in fourteen jails — who never drank, 
smoked, chewed, lied, stole, or cheated, and yet has 
been more misrepresented, more misunderstood, more 
outraged than any man on record; who was at the head 
of three great mercantile houses in America, England 
and Australia a quarter of a century ago; wdio built a 
score of clipper ships, introduced Concord coaches, rail- 
ways and telegraphs at the antipodes, horse railways in 
Europe, launched the Atlantic and Great Western Rail- 
way, organized the Credit-Mobilier, built the Union 
Pacific Railroad, founded the system of railways in 
Colorado and Nebraska, built a liundred-room hotel in 
sixty days, and raised Omaha from an Indian village 
into a cosmopolitan city, and yet has now the reputation 
of being "the champion lunatic of the world." Who is 
neither Christian nor Jew, Mohammedan nor Infidel, 
who hates hypocrisy and loves honor; who never be- 
longed to a church, party, or club ; who never held office 
and never voted; who organized Fenianism, Commun- 
ism, and Internationalism, and ^^et was never a Fenian, 
Communist, or Internationalist; who never wronged 
man nor woman, never was angry, never bore any one 
malice; who sincerely regrets, if, in hot religious or 
political controversy, he has unintentionally injured 
any one's feelings; who apologizes to the press and pub- 
lic men for the hard things he may have said which he 
did not mean; who never experienced the sensations of 
envy, jealousy, revenge or remorse; whose moral char- 



A REMARKABLE CAREER. 349 

acter no one ever durst question, and yet who lias been 
called more names tlian any one living or dead. Who lias 
crossed the ocean forty-seven times, been three times 
round the world, can say "How do you do?" in twenty 
languages, has published a score of books, has been 
praised and abused in ten thousand newspapers; who 
decliues to earn $40,000 a year on the lecture stage. 
Who has foreshadowed all the great events of the world 
for twenty years; who received one thousand square 
nominations for the Presidency from one thousand Con- 
ventions, from Puget Sound to -Florida, on his Green- 
back platform which Peter Cooper stole; who feels that 
he is two hundred years old in knowledge, and yet is 
so young he can only find companionship with children; 
and has evoluted far enough to understand that he 
knows just enough to appreciate that he does not know 
anything; whose principles are such he cannot shake 
hands with adults, eat animal food, remain long in-doors, 
visit churches, theaters or hotels; whose wholefood con- 
sists of a bowl of boiled rice, or a baked apple and a cup of 
coffee twice a day; who actually believes that, barring 
fate, he will be a hale young man at the next Centennial; 
who sees nothing but sunshine where all is fog to others; 
who holds the psychologic remedy for our national dis- 
ease, yet declines . to shake the tree before the fruit is 
ripe; whose instinct makes him autocrat over himself; 
who believes that he is the born chief of a true republic" 
that will be founded in America when the Electoral 
College is exploded, and the words "American citizen" 
stand higher than that of Democrat or Republican? 



350 Crawford's orpheus. 



CEAWFOED'S OEPHEUS. 

By Miss Elizabeth P. Peabodt. 

Forever passeth Beauty's form, 

To Nature's deep abyss; 
Not always Love, unchanged and warm, 
Dares with his lyre old Night to charm, 

And win the faded bliss. 

But always poet's heart believeth, 

Whatever Time may say, 
There is no loss but song retrieveth; 
He is a coward heart that leaveth 

The light of Life — Death's prey! 

Blest be the poet's hand that toiled 

To carve in lasting stone. 
The act that in all time hath foiled 
Despair's terrific power, and spoiled 

Destruction of its own. 

Thus ever from the vulgar day 

The hero shades his eyes; 
Peering through dim obstruction's sway, 
Perchance upon his darkened way 

The cherished form may rise ! 

He sees her not! And what though low 

Lies Cerberus, overwrought? 
His lyre hath quickened Lethe's flow. 
Cast coolness o'er Cocytus' glow — 
All this he heedeth not. 

He only knows thou art not won — 
The *' perfect good and fair." 

The race of life is yet to run; 

The only deed is yet undone, 
The hero still must dare ! 



BUSSIANS AT THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 351 



BUSSIANS AT THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

By Alphonse Pinabt. 

Any one who has visited Kanai, the most northern 
island of the Hawaiian group, will remember the re- 
mains of a small stone fort at Hanalei, and earth-works 
at the entrance to the harbors of Waimea and Hanalei. 
Although covered now with the luxuriant vegetation of 
the country, enough of the fort is still visible to allow 
one to trace its outlines. Very few, even among the in- 
habitants of the island of Kanai, dream of the romance 
and real history connected with the erection of those 
works. 

In 1814, the ship ^'Behring," belonging to the Rus- 
sian Fur Company, was wrecked near the entrance to 
the harbor of Waimea, and her cargo was plundered 
by the natives, led by their king. News of the ship- 
wreck having reached New Archangel, the seat of the 
Russian Fur Company on the northwest coast of America, 
Governor Baranoff determined to send a commissioner 
to the king of the Sandwich Islands, the celebrated 
Kamehameha I. Dr. George Schaffer, a German by 
birth, who had been attached as a surgeon to one of the 
ships sent yearly by the Company around the world, 
was directed to proceed to Oahu on board the Russian 
ship "Discovery." According to the instructions re- 
ceived from Governor Baranoff, Schaffer was to act as 
if he had no important business on hand. He was to 
exercise his profession as a physician and collect speci- 
mens in natural history. In a very short time, Schaffer 
was on friendly terms with the king. He was even 
fortunate enough to cure him and his wife when they 
were sick. This made him a still greater favorite. At 
this juncture, he thought the time had come to divulge 



352 RUSSIANS AT THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 

to Kameliamelia tlie true motive of his visit to the 
I.slaiids. Kamehameha, who for years past had been 
endeavoring to seize the domains of all the smaller kings 
in the group, promised his assistance. 

Emboldened by the promises of the king, Schaffer 
leaves in the early part of 1816 for Kanai. The king of 
that island, Famalii, who v^as in mortal fear of his pow- 
erful neighbor, Kamehameha, acceded to the demands 
of the doctor, and not only returned all that was left of 
the property taken from the wreck of the ''Behring," 
but agreed to pay for everything that was missing. 
Dr. Schaffer, seeing the good disposition of the king, 
thought of a change in his tactics. What if he should 
make a friend of Famalii, and put him and his small 
kingdom under the protectorate of the Czar of all the 
Bussias ? No sooner thought than done. The papers 
were drafted, promises made, and the treaty signed by 
Famalii. The conditions were, on the part of Famalii: 
His allegiance to the imperial crown; the privilege of 
trading in sandal-wood given to the Russian Fur Com- 
pany, and the grant of large tracts of land in the best 
parts of the island. On the part of Dr. Schaffer, acting 
for the Russian Fur Company, the conditions were: 
To furnish Famalii with two ships of war; a certain 
number of marines and sailors to man said ships, and a 
quantity of arms and ammunition. The articles of the 
treaty being signed by both parties, the Russian flag was 
solemnly hoisted at Waimea on the seventeenth of May, 
1817, a salute was fired and the country virtually turned, 
over to Schaffer. Everything went smoothly for a time, 
although King Kamehameha, infuriated at the conduct 
of his former friend, and the American whalers then 
congregated at Oahu and Hawaii, made continual threats 
of war. To be ready for any emergency, orders w^ere 
given to build forts at the two most important harbors 



RUSSIANS AT THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 353 

on Kanai, wliicli was effectually done. Then Scliaffer 
bought; an old English brig and fitted it with guns. 
This demonstration of force cooled down, for a time, 
the fiery spirit of Kamehameha. 

Bat soon he tried his hand at diplomacy; he sent 
messengers of peace to Famalii; at first they had very 
little success. By and by, however, Famalii, seeing that 
the promises made by Dr. Schaffer were not fulfilled, 
began to doubt his sincerity. The sending by Kame- 
hameha of a fleet of war vessels, commanded by an 
American, Adams, for the avowed purpose of invading 
Famalii's territory, dispelled whatever confidence was 
left in the mind of Famalii, 

Things began to grow worse for the Russians, threats 
being continually made by the American whalers and 
traders that they would join the Kanackas to drive the 
intruders away. On the twenty-fifth of May, 1817, 
when the Russians were at work, a sudden attack was 
made on them and the forts, their houses and all their 
property were seized. The Russians were then placed 
on board the ships that were riding at anchor. Schafi'er 
barely escaped with his life, in a boat from Hanalei, 
where he was at the time of the assault. The Kanackas 
had cut holes in his boat, and he was hardly half-way 
between the shore and the ship when his boat sank, and 
he was obliged to swim toward the ship; at the same 
time the Kanackas, who had seen that their stratagem 
had failed, fired at him. He got, however, safely on 
board the " Myot-Kodiac," which was herself in a sink- 
ing condition. At Oahu, the Kanacka authorities v/ould 
not allow her to come to anchor until all arms and am- 
munition had been surrendered. Then a demand was 
made for the delivery of Dr. Schiifier, and the only 
thing that saved his life was the opportune arrival of 
the ship ** Panther," of Boston, Captain Lewis, who 
23 



354 THE DYING BOY. 

took him on board hidden in a barrel, and was deaf 
to all demands for his surrender. From Oahu the ship 
went to Canton, and thence Dr. Schaffer proceeded to 
Bussia. Although the matter of the protectorate was 
taken up at the time by the imperial government, no 
attempt was made to renew the ties of friendship be- 
tween the two countries. 



THE DYING BOY. 

By Mrs. William S. E-obinson. ("Warrington.") 

'T WAS eve. The beams of parting day 

Gilded the earth; the shadows gray 

Stole from their haunts by woodland stream, 

Like the dim j)hantoms of a dream. 

A boy lay low; upon his cheek 

Death's hand was pressed; his forehead meek 

Was marked with pain, and in his eye 

So dark and clear, there seemed to lie 

A shadow, like the cloudlets white 

That dot the moonlit blue of night! 

But still he lay, save when he raised 

His heavy lids and fondly gazed 

On a fair face, grown sadly dim 

"With anxious, ceaseless care for him. 

The evening waned; with boat-like grace, 

The moon sailed forth, and on his face 

She shed her beams like silver spray. 

And washed the dews of death away! 

From his young eye the shadow fled — 

A lustre o'er his brow was spread — 

His outstretched arms a welcome spoke, 

"While gladly from his pale lips broke, 

A gushing sound, like the mellow chime 

Of silver bells in the cool night-time : 



THE DYING BOY. 355 

** Oh, mother! see there! a white-winged boat, 
From the far-off spirit-land; 
It comes like a lily-cup afloat. 
Or a sea-bird o'er the sand. 

" My sister is there, and father too! 
He beckons, I cannot stay ! 
And shows a cross to my eager view, 
That he holds to guide the way. 

** The dove that we lost so long ago. 
Flies over my sister's head; 
The one that unfurled its wings of snow. 
For the land of death, you said! 

*' And music around them seems to break, 
Like sunshine on flowers bright, 
"While Cherub forms afar in their wake, 
Make a living line of light. 

"I go, dear mother! Oh! do not weep. 
For I long to lay my hand 
In my sister's dear, and fall asleep. 
And sail to the Happy Land. 

** Do you know when we staid so long at play. 
And you pined to see your own. 
You came to us? So you'll come one day, 
"When you're tired of living alone." 

Silent in death was the music-strain; 

And low drooped the boy's fair head; 
For the silver chain was rent in twain. 

And the white-winged boat had fled. 

'T was autumn — the snow-flakes began to float — 

On an evening calm and mild. 
The mother embarked in the spirit-boat, 

And followed her angel child. 



356 PABLIAMENTARY. 



PAELIAMENTAKY. 

By Henry J. Latham. 

Old Squire Williams was a politician. He had been 
elected police magistrate of Lis little village three con- 
secutive times. He had inhaled the judicial atmos- 
phere to such an extent that he had become thoroughly 
imbued with the spirit of law, order and decorum, 
and as a result, he would sometimes unconsciously 
attempt to conduct his household affairs in the strict 
parliamentary manner observed in public meetings. 
For instance, if, while at the table, his little boy 
Jimmy would ask for another piece of pie, the old gen- 
tleman would sharply answer, ''Come to order, sir. 
The chair denies your request. In its opinion, your 
infantile digestive organs would be materially injured 
by a second invasion of pie." 

"But, pa, while you were looking the other way, 
Mamie reached over and hooked my pie." 

"Your point is not well taken, sir. If your relative 
deliberately purloined your pastry, you should have 
referred the matter to the executive committee of this 
establishment, consisting of your mother and myself." 

"Eh?". . . .and the boy would begin to cry. 

"Come now, young man; none of that. If the de- 
cision of the chair cannot be complied with without a 
tearful demurrer on your part, why, I will declare this 
meeting adjourned, and you and I and a big strap, for 
about ten minutes, will go into executive session in the 
woodshed." 

This threat would have the effect of quieting the un- 
ruly member. 

Last summer the Squire's wife died. After mourning 



PARLIAMENTARY. 357 

for a reasonable time, lie came to the conclusion that 
he would like to have another help-mate. So, oue after- 
noon, he sat down in his office and wrote out the follow- 
ing preamble and resolution : 

"Whereas, in consequence of the death of the late 
Mrs. "Williams, our bosom yearns for the companionship 
of another loving sympathizer of the feminine gender; 
and, 

"Whereas, we are convinced that another motherly 
female is needed in this establishment, to place the 
soothing hand of affection upon our often heated bro^, 
to sew on our buttons, assuage our heart-burnings, and 
give our poor motherless children an occasional spank- 
ing; and, 

"Whereas, we have in our mind's eye a fascinating 
young lady, who, we have reason to believe, would be 
only too happy to accept these duties; therefore be it 

"Kesolved, that we form ourself into a Committee 
of One, for the purpose of askiug this young lady if she 
will marry. We entrust the said committee with full 
power to act in the premises, and report as soon as 
possible." Three days later this eccentric individual 
again sat at his desk and penned the following: "The 
committee to whom was referred the duty of ascertaining 
the state of a certain young lady's feelings on the sub- 
ject of matrimony, beg leave to report: 

"First — That we called at the residence of the afore- 
said young lady, and Avere met at the gate, not by the 
young lady, but by a ferocious canine of tlie bull-dog 
species. The aforesaid bull-dog probably mistook us 
for a book-agent, and in his zeal to prevent the sale of 
literature, he attacked us in our rear, and deliberately 
proceeded to breakfast on the juicy portion of your 
committee. 



358 PARLIAMENTARY. 

'' Second — That this proceeding being entirely foreign 
to our desires, we resisted the man-eating propensities 
of the aforesaid animal, and would have dispatched him, 
had not the young lady herself, at this juncture, ap- 
peared upon the scene. She induced the ravenous 
creature to relinquish his mouthful of committee, 
excused the bull-dog, and invited us in. 

''Third — That we entered the parlor, placed a hand- 
kerchief over the torn portion of our pantaloons, and 
delicately broached the object of our visit. 

"Fourth — That the young lady, in a freezing manner 
informed us that we might discontinue; she never in- 
tended to marry; she was too young to marry; she loved 
another; she wouldn't marry a red-headed man anyhow. 

''Fifth — That we persisted, when the young lady in- 
formed us there was no use in arguing the question — 
her mind was made np, and if we did not immediately 
take our departure, her big brother, who was in the 
next room making preparations to go hunting for rab- 
bits, would be called in, and he would be most happy 
to go gunning for your committee with number BB 
duck-shot. 

"Sixth — That your committee took the hint and 
sloped. We therefore beg to be discharged, for we will 
never go again on any such experiments. You may 
hereafter cool your own brow, assuage your own heart- 
burnings, and do your own spanking. In conclusion we 
would ask if you can suggest an effectual remedy for 
hydrophobia?" 

"All," said the squire, "in favor of adopting this 
report will raise their hands." 

The squire's hand goes up. The meeting is adjourned 
sine die. 



GATHER IN THE BOYS. 359 



GATHER IN THE BOYS. 

By Mrs. John McHenky. 

Yes, gather in the boj^s, men, 

And teach them manly ways; 

Bemember you were boys once, 

In younger, happier days. 

Their boyhood days must soon be o'er, and they must take 

your place. 
To shoulder up life's weary cares and run life's weary race. 
Each little waif that roams around the city's thronging 

mart. 
Must one day stand for good or ill, with good or evil heart. 
To point the way to other boys who will come in their 

stead, 
And guide our glorious nation when you're numbered with 

the dead. 
Boys will be boys, and every one. 
However wild he be. 
Somebody loved him in the days 
Of helpless infancy. 
Then mothers, in this happy land, O! give each one your 

mite, 
To gather in the homeless boys and guide them in the right. 
And God will bless your charity, for *' after many days," 
The bread you cast upon the sea, returns in many ways. 



360 BAD BOYS. 



BAD BOYS. 

By Dpv. Mary P. Sawtelle. 

The average boy lias a liard time in tins world. He 
gets too many kicks and cuffs and rude rebuffs. He is 
rarely treated with common civility. He is, however, 
a good imitator, showing genius in his masterly efforts 
at playing for even. If no opportunity offers itself to be 
rude to the person who gave him the last rebuff, he 
never stops until he has been ugly, or actually, mean to 
the next dozen persons with whom he comes in contact; 
and this gives him little time to be good. 

Grown people are rarely ready to confess tJiat they 
have been bad to the boys. This is not natural; they 
only complain that the boys are bad to them. All boys 
are '*bad boys," generally speaking, and everybody 
thinks they should be restrained; so we scold them, 
cuff them, pull their ears, whip them, send them to bed 
supperless, and impose countless other inflictions upon 
them. The boys, in turn, are vigilant in eluding chas- 
tisement. Every stratagem is employed to establish 
their innocence; but they are punished. There was a 
period in their younger boyhood, when they stood upon 
their dignity, denying any malicious intent to do wrong; 
but they have been punished so much and often, that 
they begin to distrust themselves, and, like everybody 
else, believe in tho innate depravity of childhood, and 
give up entirely trying to be good. All this time the 
poor fellow has one faithful friend — his mother — on 
whom he can rely in the hour of trial. However bad 
all other boys may be, she knows Iter boy is good. 
The mother's love for her boy, and the man's love for 
his mother are the two holiest of all earth's loves; they 



BAD BOYS. 361 

are pure, and produce more good and less evil than all 
other loves. The mother has so much faith in her boy, 
that she is half inclined to believe there may be just the 
least bit of good in other boys with Avhom she is ac- 
quainted. The real bad boys live on the other block, 
or over in the adjoining neighborhood. 

But this stage of boyhood is not nearly so hazardous 
as the next, when boys almost forget that they have a 
mother; when they get out into the world and meet 
folly, evil and vice continually. They learn to smoke, 
swear, cheat, lie, steal; listen to obscene stories, run 
away from home, keep late hours on the street-corners, 
drink a little, visit disreputable places — in short, they go 
through the programme of boyhood vices some way. 
If they have the physical strength to endure all this, 
presently reason begins to assert itself, and the boy 
gives way to the mastery of the man. One vice is dis- 
carded to-day, one folly escaped, and so on to the end of 
the chapter, until he stands erect, grand and noble, 
warding off vice and temptation like bullets in the thick 
battle. Aboat one third come out of the conflict of 
boyhood thus victoriously — one third only; two thirds 
allow popular vices to cling to them for life, or sink into 
early graves. Every boy can restrain himself and be- 
come a mats, a citizen, worthy of this great republic in 
which we live, and so make it a better place for the next 
generation of boys. 



302 HOW HE PROVED HER AFFECTION. 



HOW HE PEOYED HER AFFECTION. 

By Harry Enton. 

Silvery peals of laughter rang out througli the wooded 
glens of Marbledale, as the Wren girls, Gertie and 
Alice, wandered over the greensward, plucking wood 
violets and pansies and merrily chaffing each other. 

*'Doyou know, Alice," said Gertie, who was fully 
two years the junior of her stately sister, "I have an 
idea that William Brown thinks a greatdeal of you?" 

*' Gertie!" petulantly interrupted Alice, a very pretty 
frown on her face, "do cease rattling on with your non- 
sense. The idea of papa's gardener falling in love with 
me!" 

'* And that isn't the worst of it," persisted the saucy 
Gertie, "my sister Alice has shown an unusual amount 
of liking for the young man in question. Why Alice, 
there's nothing awful about it. When I look at his deep 
blue, laughing eyes, his tall robust form, his clear 
ruddy cheek, and hear his musical laughter, I am al- 
most tempted to set my cap for him." 

"Gertie, you are too provoking!" exclaimed Alice, 
and with scarlet cheeks, she picked up her skirts and 
ran away toward the house, while Gertie laughed mer- 
rily. 

" She doesn't know her own heart," Gertie murmured 
to herself; " Oh if she only knew; if she only knew!" 

These girls were the daughters of a farmer who had 
become enriched, some two years previously, by a sud- 
den Avindfall of fortune. Gertie and her sister, both 
pretty girls, had pleaded to live in the city, and their 
doting father had humored them. The fashionable life 
to which they had been introduced in the city, had 



HOW HE PROVED HER AFFECTION. 363 

sorely tried tliese young, pure-hearted girls, but with 
intelligence and tact, they had soon learned the ins and 
outs of the heau monde existence. 

Gertie it had left no effect upon, but with the roman- 
tic Alice there was wrought a change. She had dreamed 
of becoming a leader in society, and her ambition might 
have smothered the higher and purer thoughts of her 
young life, had it not been, — but we must not anticipate. 
Three months had passed away since thej^ had returned 
to their pleasant country-seat. Gertie was as happy as 
a lark, but Alice longed for society. 

She passed the time thinking over her triumphs of 
the last season, and in devising many and many a plan 
which should subdue and bring to her feet a certain 
heart, that she had sought in vain to captivate. We 
must not forget to state that she often upbraided her 
pride, when she found her thoughts resting upon a cer- 
tain somebod}^ who was not in her set. In vain did 
the proud Alice avert her gaze and seek to deafen her 
ears. A pair of expressive blue eyes, a cheek ruddy 
from toil, a full, broad brow, darkened from exposure 
to wind and sun, and a tall, graceful form would rise up 
before her. Her ear would listen for a light, quick 
footstep; her heart would thrill at the most careless word 
uttered by that voice. In vain she tried to escape from 
this spell. Like the struggling fly in the spider's web, 
each unhappy effort only tightened the strands. And 
who was he that caused tliese strange emotions? Her 
father's gardener! but then you know it is proverbial 
that " love is blind." 

Every day Alice discovered in William Brown some 
noble sentiment — some lofty attribute. Every day the 
grace and elegance of his form increased in her eyes. 
She sought to escape from this strange fascination, but 
her efforts to free herself only increased its power. 



364 HOW HE PROVED HER AFFECTION. 

''When will this folly, this madness cease?" she said 
to herself one evening as she sat by the open window, 
holding a letter in her hand, and listening to the gar- 
dener's rich voice as he sang to her sister. " When will 
it end?" 

Well might Alice Wren ask herself that question, for 
the letter she held in her hands, was from one who 
had once occupied a place in her thoughts to the exclu- 
sion of everything else. It was from Clermont Payne, 
the young man she had learned to love during the pre- 
vious winter, and the letter contained an offer of his 
heart and hand! 

Two months since, how that proud heart would have 
exulted as she read those lines, so deeply expressive of 
a noble, generous affection ! But her father's gardener 
had won her love. None could ever command her re- 
spect, her sincere admiration, more than Clermont 
Payne had done, and his position in life was that which 
she would want her husband to occupy. Now the manly 
declaration brought agony to her heart; she felfc that 
she could never drive the gardener from her bosom. 
She felt that it was impossible for her to grant what 
Clermont had asked. 

William Brown's joyous laughter rang in her ears, 
and her heart fluttered. She leaned her head upon her 
hand. Could the hand be given without the heart? 
Pride asked the question, faintly at first, but as the 
moments sped by, it spoke in a louder tone, and at 
length an answer to the letter was written, but Alice 
durst not trust herself to peruse the words she penned. 
All night long she sat at the window, her dark eyes 
gazing dreamily out upon the moonlit scene, trying to 
still the voice of her heart; seeking to make pride her 
guide, and crashing affection. The young lady had not 



HOW HE PROVED HER AFFECTION. 865 

risen from her seat, when Gertie, fair and smiling as 
the morning which was looking from the rosy east, 
entered her chamber, attired for her accustomed ram- 
ble, and Alice, to hide the perturbation of her manner, 
hastened to go with her. 

The flowers were just lifting their eyes of dew toward 
the sun, and turning their blushing cheeks toward the 
breeze, when the young ladies j^assed through the neat 
garden and entered the pleasant wood beyond. The 
happy, younger sister laughed wdth the flowers and sang 
with the birds, but Alice could not join in her mirth. 

*'My Edward Avill be here to-day," said the younger 
sister, *'andl must gather some flowers for my hair. 
William says we shall find the sweetest by the left bank 
of the brook, and he also says that you must bring him 
back a bouquet. I gave him my promise that you 
would so do. He is a good fellow^, but I think he pre- 
sumes a great deal. I do believe that he aspires to 
your hand." 

Alice blushed painfully, but her ears drank in the 
words thirstily; pride grew weak, and the voice of her 
heart was strong and joyous. 

In silence the sisters returned to the house, and 
Alice, hastening to her room, tore up the letter which 
had been designed for Clermont Payne. AVhat a load 
of misery did that act lift from her heart, and how 
lightly danced the little feet as she ran back to the hall 
to arrange her flowers in bouquets! How lovely she 
looked, with the hue of the rose on her cheeks ! White 
floAvers were gleaming amid the dark hair, and sprays 
twined among her glossy curls. 

''What a lovely flower she is herself!" murmured 
William Brown, as he looked in at the open door. 
" The fairest and sweetest rose that ever bloomed." 



366 now HE PKOVED HER AFFECTION. 

Perhaps Alice imagined what was in his heart, for 
the rose-tint deepened on her clear cheek, and her fin- 
gers trembled so much as the young man drew near 
her, and in a low whisper begged that the beautiful 
cluster of rosebuds he had bound together with a 
branch of myrtle, might be placed amid the bouquet 
she was arranging, that she could hardly retain the 
flowers her hand had closed upon. But there was no 
reproof on her lips, and as the gardener looked down 
into her beautiful eyes, no expression could he see of 
anger or contempt. 

' * Give me a little flower, something that will speak 
of you." 

The lady said, '* William, there is nothing I may 
withhold from you." 

*' Alice!" cried out Gertie, who, to the young lady's 
astonishment, though not to that of the gardener, stood 
beside her; '* can it be possible? What are you think- 
ing of, my sister? Where is your pride, your ambition, 
your — " 

Gertie could restrain her mirth no longer, and her 
peals of joyous laughter brought her father into the 
hall, and the twinkle in the old gentleman's eyes 
told plainly enough that he fully understood and ap- 
proved the position of affairs, and his mirth was as loud 
as Gertie's. 

When he saw the deep distress of his daughter, 
whose hand, though she struggled to free herself, the 
gardener would not release, he spoke to her: 

*'Do not flutter so, my daughter," he said; ''you 
have my hearty approval." 

Alice lifted her head and regarded her father with 
surprise and gratitude. The old gentleman laughed 
gleefully. 



THE BETHLEHEM SONG. 367 

"Alice," lie said, "you have been cleverly deceived, 
and by all of ns. I will not say that this young man 
was the originator of the plot, but your reception of 
him when he came to this house suggested the plan to 
him, and we, Gertie and myself, have done all we could 
to help the plan along." 

"And," broke in Gertie, "if you are displeased, you 
must divide your anger among us all, or, what would be 
better, forgive us all, and blame only your own eyes. 
For look, my dear sister : should this young man hide 
his brown curls beneath the black wig he once wore 
when sickness had robbed his head of its natural cover- 
ing; should he conceal his eyes by colored glasses; 
should his sun-imbrowned cheek become pale again — " 

"Oh!" shrieked Alice, her eyes fixed wonderingly 
upon her lover, — "it is Clermont Payne!" 

"Forgive me," whispered her lover; "you will not 
chide me now that you have both lovers in one. You 
cannot regret William Brown — " 

"I forgive all," whispered the happy girl; "but why 
did you deceive me, Clermont ? " 

" To prove your love for me," he said. " And Alice, 
dear, you know that * all 's fair in love and war ! ' " 



THE BETHLEHEM SONG. 

By Eev. Dr. S. Dryden Phelps. 

No song was ever heard. 

No gladsome voice or word. 
Since broke o'er earth the blest primeval morn. 

Like the celestial sound 

That swept the air around, 
O'er Bethlehem's plains, the night that Christ was born. 



368 THE BETHLEHEM SONG. 

Half-dreaming by the rocks, 

The shepherds watched their flocks. 

But woke, in wonder rapt, the song to hear. 
As through the sky-roof riven. 
The angel flashed from heaven — 

A messenger of mingled awe and fear. 

Fear not! the angel said. 

But joyful be instead; 
Tidings of gladness and delight I bring: 

And not alone for you 

This revelation new — 
O'er all the earth the rapturous joy shall ringl 

This day in swathing folds. 

The humble manger holds 
The Lord, Messiah, Saviour, born for you. 

As thither ye repair. 

To David's City fair. 
The wondrous sign shall meet your eager yiew. 

Then round the angel bright, 

A host in heavenly light. 
Confirmed the truth in notes of highest praise. 

Glory to God! they sang; 

Peace and good-will! they rang 
In chorus grander than all earth-born lays. 

The Lord had come to men; 

The Lord will come again — 
Is coming now in blest Salvation's car. 

Dark lands! the joy receive; 

Sad souls! your burdens leave. 
Transfigured by the Bethlehem Morning Star! 



FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. 369 

FIXEDNESS OF PUEPOSE. 

By John Watts de Peyster. 

A Fkench analytical writer Las come to the conclusion 
that, out of the thirteen or fourteen hundreds of millions 
of inhabitants upon the earth, not more than some ten 
thousand (about one in a million) think for themselves. 
This is a startling assertion, but it may be approxi- 
mately true. From this comparatively small class of 
original thinkers, or individuals who insist upon doing 
their own thinking, step forth the great men of the 
world. Greatness does not consist in the accumulation 
of enormous fortunes, though it may be shown in ex- 
pending them for. the diffusion of happiness and the 
accomplishment of grand purposes for the benefit of 
mankind. The truly great men of this world have not 
been millionaires, and God has rarely selected his 
agents from the opulent classes. In this country, espe- 
cially, those who have done the most for humanity have 
looked to the future, and not to the pecuniary emolu- 
ments, for their reward. 

The inordinate thirst for money is the curse of this 
epoch and of this country, and it probably will be its 
ruin. It is w^ell to ponder on the following remarks of 
Davies, the historian of the '^ Seven United States of 
Holland" — once the arbiter of Europe, the asylum of 
human thought, the refuge (like the Thirteen United 
States of America) of the persecuted of the world : 

"From her place of pride amoDg nations Holland has 
now fallen, and in the history of her fall may be read a 
useful though melancholy lesson to every free and com- 
mercial people, to be on the watch lest they mistake the 
heat of partisan spirit for the zeal of patriotism; and lest 
they seek for national wealth as the end, and not the means, 
of national greatness." 
24 



370 FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. 

God takes no account of men or money, in accom- 
plishing Lis purposes. 

As one instance, consider the losses of Napoleon, 
during the Russian campaign of 1812; to which add 
the Russian casualties, and the swallowing up of count- 
less riches in the flames of Moscow. The total tran- 
scends all accounts of men and material destroyed by 
other like catastrophes. The armies of Napoleon had 
become the enemies of peace and progress. Their 
work was done; they Avere ripe for the sickle of time; 
they perished. The same remarks and rules apply not 
only to destructions accomplished by man, but to de- 
vastations due to cataclysms of nature, the exertions of 
the latent powers of nature. Antioch vv^as visited by 
an earthquake, in consequence of which two hundred 
and fifty thousand persons perished. Sixty thousand 
human beings lost their lives in six minutes at Lisbon. 

Reflection will demonstrate that the object of the 
life-long struggle of most men is money; but money, as 
already stated, seems to be of no moment whatever 
with the Almighty; certainly not in the carrying out of 
liis designs. A tempest, as in the case of the Invin- 
cible Armada, consigns to the deep a fleet whose pre- 
paration has exhausted a decade's productiveness of 
the richest mines and the efforts of a mighty monarchy; 
a financial panic eliminates more than the equivalent of 
the national war debt, incurred in curing a social evil 
which might have been remedied long since, by the 
simple concurrence of fixedness of purpose and the 
counsels of common sense. A volcanic eruption, as of 
Vesuvius, in a few hours, buries the accumulations of 
centuries of art and commerce. All these sudden anni- 
hilations of almost incalculable treasure, do not stop for 
an instant the general progress of humanity; they rather 



FIXEDNESS or PURPOSE. 371 

develop its forces. Tliej are susceptible of facile rem- 
edy, and in the aggregation of new masses of Avealtli, 
tliey are speedily forgotten. Wealth, like nature, rap- 
idly lieals the "wounds of violence and conceals the ruins 
of the most fearful convulsions. 

The men, however, who amid these throes rise supe- 
rior to them, and fc-how themselves greater in the exertion 
of mind, will live when the remembrance of the mighty 
spasms, which brought them to the front, are lost in the 
multitudes of similar terrible occurrences. Take as 
examples, Drake, Ealeigh, Lincoln and Pliny. '^All 
bodies," says Pascal, *'the firmament, the stars, the 
earth and its kingdoms, are not worth the human mind, 
for it knows all these and itself, Avhile bodies know 
nothing." 

Plato, Archimedes, Copernicus, and Galileo gather 
brilliancy with successive generations. Galileo Avas a 
contemporary of the most illustrious bankers of the age, 
named Fugers. How few have ever heard of this family 
of money-makers and lenders ! How few that do not know 
something about the persecuted but immortal astrono- 
mer! "After all," says Leigh Hunt, in his autobiog- 
raphy, "I know not whether the most interesting sight, 
in Florence, is not a little mysterious bit of something 
like parchment, which is shown you under a glass case 
in the principal public library. It stands pointing to- 
wards heaven, and is one of the fingers of Galileo ! The 
hand to Avhich it belonged is supposed to have been put 
to the torture for ascribing motion to the earth, and the 
finger is now Avorshipped for having proved the motion. 
Let no suffering reformer's pen misgive him. If his 
cause is good, justice will be done at some future day." 

Let not soldiers dream that their imaginary immor- 
tality of renown can compare with the lustre of the real 



372 FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. 

benefactors of their kind. Joab was tlie general-in- 
chief of David, second king of Israel. His remarkable 
exploits are dwelt upon at length in the Bible, the most 
nniversallj studied book ever written. In spite of this, 
how few remember Joab, while the name of his master, 
the sweet Psalmist of Israel, is daily on the tongues and 
in the thoughts of millions. 

Most great men have been self-made, because there 
is no royal road to learning. The few great rulers in 
the history of the world, were sufferers or workers to a 
degree which would appall the mass of ordinary men; 
witness such rulers as Alfred of England, William of 
Normandy, Gustavus of Sweden, Frederic of Prussia. 
There are some men that not only study in books, but 
constantly learn from nature in their daily walks; while 
others pass through life without noticing anything, ex- 
cept the few objects which minister to their selfish en- 
joyment. A habit of attention is another secret of 
human success, combined with a keen observation of 
occurrences. 

"The wise man's eyes," said Solomon, "are in his 
head; but the fool walketh in darkness." Even memory 
is attention, and the latter is one of the most important 
elements of fixedness of purpose. Attention, or will, is 
the most important impressor of knowledge upon the 
brain. It acts like the sun upon the photographer's 
plate. 

Pascal, one of the most extraordinary mathematicians, 
conquered geometry without any assistance. In like 
manner, Gassendi, one of the most learned of the phi- 
losophers, and most philosophic of the learned men of 
his age, laid the basis of his astronomical renown. The 
vapor escaping from a tea-kettle suggested to Watt the 
idea of the steam-engine, and that was the origin of the 



FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. 373 

motor which now does the work of the civilized world. 
A thousand examples might be cited of the triumph of 
the union of mental labor, observation, and fixedness 
of purpose. This proposition refers to no single branch 
of art or science. Poor boys, by its application, have 
won pre-eminent names. 

Paracelsus, almost a life-long vagabond, through his 
close observation of nature became the father of modern 
chemistry as applied to medicine. Consider what 
vigils, what years of thought, observation and calcula- 
tion, alone enabled Leverrier to deterinine the existence 
of Neptune, and indicate, millions of miles beyond the 
farthest planet as yet discovered, the quarter of the 
heavens in which it would show itself! He admonished 
the astronomical world to fix their instruments upon a 
given point, and at a designated time, and lo! the 
stranger orb was there. Such instances of fixedness of 
purpose have also manifested themselves in the highest 
stations. Alexander the Great acquired as much dis- 
tinction by his accurate observation of the currents of 
commerce, and his location of the main key-point of 
trade, Alexandria, as he won undying renown by his ap- 
preciation of the key-points of war. Hannibal, who 
brought the Roman power to the verge of destruction, 
laid the basis of his celebrity by this oath, taken while 
yet a child: *'Upon the altar of my country's gods, few 
be my days or many, dark or fair, in triumph or in 
trouble, far or near, I swear to live and die Pome's en- 
emy." This, his boyish resolution, he followed without 
wavering to the end of life, and the same fixedness of 
purpose made him remarkable as a diplomatist, an ad- 
ministrator, and a statesman, as he was formidable as 
an organizer, a warrior, and a general. Cato's one idea 
that Carthage must be destroyed — Delenda est Carthago! 



374 FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. 

— with wliicli lie ended every speech he made in the 
Koman senate, whatever was its immediate purport, 
eventually brought about the overthrow of the greatest 
commercial power of antiquity. Hannibal had as strong 
a will to overthrow Rome as Cato to lay in the dust its 
rival Carthage. The latter was the more successful, and 
carried his point simply because he was an instrument 
of Providence to blot out a cruel, selfish oligarchy. 
Hannibal proceeded so far and so wonderfully as he 
did, because he was an agent necessary to the world's 
progress, in that his success, short of final triumph, 
compelled the permanent solidarity of ancient Italy. 
Without the amalgamation of the jarring tribes of the 
peninsula, Rome, in turn, could not have accomplished 
her destiny, conquered the world, and leveled every- 
thing so that the doctrines of Christ would find a plane 
for their establishment, and all the obstacles could be 
removed which could have hindered their diffusion. The 
brutal Roman lust for universal dominion cleared the 
way for the development of Christianity. 

William the Norman, who conquered England, was as 
patient in the elaboration of his plans as he was atten- 
tive to the perfection of their details. Arrows were the 
missiles of his day, and he gave as much time to the 
improvement of their feathering, as is now bestowed 
upon the rifling of small arms and artillery. 

We consider that genius is a factor far more impor- 
tant to human success than talent. This is one of the 
greatest of mistakes. Genius alone can dispense with 
laborious preparation, and yet there is something above 
or superior to genius; it is common sense, the highest 
kind of sense, Avhicli is a compound of instinct, study, 
observation and reflection. 

Genius is a flash of lighcning. Talent is electricity, 



FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. 375 

controlled and made serviceable. Genius bridges the 
gulf wliicli arrests talent, but the absolute occasion for 
its exercise is not frequent. Human progress could ad- 
vance without the exceptional impulses of genius, but 
not without the patient fixedness of purpose peculiar 
to talent. Washington was a miracle of common sense. 
He was endowed with such an equipoise of talent, un- 
wavering fixedness of purpose, and clear judgment for 
the employment of means, that none but he could 
have led the thirteen Colonies through seven years of 
poverty, of war and of suffering, to independence. 
Genius has a transient influence, while the operation of 
talent is as susceptible of increase as of endurance. 

The American army in Mexico exhibited a like fixed- 
ness of purpose. With a force never exceeding ten 
thousand men, Scott defeated, again and again, bodies 
of disciplined troops five times as numerous, and pro- 
tected by skillfully-constructed defensive works, amply 
supplied with artillery — the Mexicans are excellent 
artillerists, — and commanded by experienced leaders. 
Napoleon said that no army of twenty thousand men 
could take a city of one hundred thousand. Neverthe- 
less, between seven and nine thousand Americans did 
forcibly take possession of a capital with two hundred 
thousand inhabitants. This was a true exhibition of 
fixedness of purpose. 

Compare the French campaign in Mexico in 1863. The 
principal columns, embracing the flower of the French 
army, numbered about thirty thousand men, besides a 
strong auxiliary force of at least five thousand apostate 
Mexicans. They were supplied with everything which a 
vast military empire could furnish to insure success, — 
an empire which had devoted its wealth and energies, for 
over a decade, to the development of its army and the 



376 FIXEDNESS OF PURPOSE. 

amelioration of its materiel, equipment and armament. 
Notwithstanding all this, Paebla, far less susceptible of 
defense than Mexico, and one half nearer to the invad- 
ers' base of supplies, stopped the French from the 
middle of March until May, 1863. It is very likely that 
between the French, renegade Mexicans, Austrians, 
Belgians, and mercenaries of other nationalities. Na- 
poleon III. directed the advance of nearly one hundred 
thousand men on the same line opened by Scott with 
less than fifteen thousand men, all told. 

Considering the difference of circumstances and the 
exhaustion of Mexico in 1863, American fixedness of 
purpose overcame, in 18i7, obstacles ten times as great 
as those over which the French triumphed in 1863, and 
the Americcins conquered the multiplied difficulties and 
dangers with means less than a third of those at the 
disposal of Forey, who was made a Marshal of France, 
for the tardy capture of Puebla; while Bazaine, his suc- 
cessor, exerting a three-fold power, was likewise created 
a Marshal for the mere occupation of Mexico in the 
same year. 

The American triumph was one of the most notable 
exhibitions of the power of human will, backed by other 
qualities, apparently inferior in importance but neces- 
sary to such an extraordinary success. Palo Alto, 
Besaca de la Palm a, Monterey and Buena Yista were 
as much victories of the will as were the Leipsic of 
Gustavus or the Waterloo of Wellington. 

The Yigilance Committees which purged San Fran- 
cisco of crime and criminals in 1851 and 1856, were 
relevant exhibitions of will or fiedness of purpose. 

The best ally of a fixedness of purpose is a high 
sense of duty. Every young man who desires to rise, 
should live up to the motto of Bayard, the knight with- 



FIXEDNESS OF PUEPOSE. 377 

out fear and without reproach: *'Do what you ought to 
do, let come what may." Michelet, the great French 
republican historian, quotes a saying of William, Prince 
of Orange, the Washington of Holland, which gives a 
still finer expression to this noble sentiment: "Not only 
when we find ourselves abandoned by all the world, but 
discover that all the world is against us, should we not 
cease, on this account, to defend ourselves even to the 
last man; not out of consideration for our own selves, 
but for the equity and justice of the cause which we 
maintain." 

Solomon in his Proverbs, and in his still more won- 
derful book entitled Ecclesiastes, concludes with an 
impressive exhortation to fixedness of purpose. 

The astonishment of the wise and the good has always 
been excited bv a consideration of the success of un- 
principled and bad men. One reason is, that in the 
pursuit of evil, bad men exhibit greatertraits of fixedness 
of purpose than the run of good men exhibit in their 
endeavors. 

The fixity of purpose of a private man, Howard, im- 
proved the whole prison system of Europe. His phi- 
lanthropy carried light, warmth, hope and health into 
the vilest and darkest dungeons into which the laws 
plunged human beings, — dens often worse than the 
cages which are constructed for wild beasts. Almost 
all the greatest benefactors of humanity have had to 
oppose their fixedness of purpose to the contumely and 
violence of the world. They struggled and suffered, 
but they conquered at last; and all the gold in Cali- 
fornia could not impart a brilliancy like that which to- 
day attaches to their names. Such men live up to the 
old Eoman maxim, '* Never despair." Horace says the 
same thing: ''Nothing is too arduous for mortals." 



378 FIXEDNESS OP PURPOSE. 

With patience and perseverance, there is no difficulty 
in that Avhich is not in itself impossible. Terence em- 
phasises this when he declares, "There is nothing so 
difficult but that it may be found out by seeking." 

Robert Bruce, when about to abandon his purpose of 
attempting to free his country, was induced to persevere 
by watching a spider. The insect failed in seven at- 
tempts to throw its thread across the roof of the cavern 
in which *'the Bruce" was concealed. The Scottish 
hero said to himself: **Like this spider, I have made 
seven attempts to redeem Scotland and have failed; if 
the spider makes another effort and is successful, it 
would be shameful for me to exhibit less fixedness of 
purpose than an insect." The spider triumphed, and 
so did the Bruce. 



WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 379 

WHAT A STEAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 

By Miss Anna T. Sadlieh. 

A December day, a December sky, masses of gray 
clouds diiving over the blue heavens, bespeaking a sec- 
ond and still heavier fail of snow than that which 
already whitened the streets and lay in great piles along 
the thoroughfares. Cold, cheerless, unpromising was 
the weather, blue and pinched the faces of the passers- 
by, bitter and biting the northerly wind: — all this with- 
out. But within, — autumn and its glorious dyes, an 
autumn sunset on a forest scene, rich, mellow light, a 
dim softened gloom, a dusk pregnant with color, gor- 
geous hues intermingled with gathering shadows, a 
place for thought and a place for prayer, where man's 
interior life finds amid the w'orld's tumult an asy- 
lum. In a word, a cathedral where the hum and 
the noise and the glare of human life are forever shut 
out; where peace reigns supreme; where joy and sor- 
row, woe and fear, meet alike on neutral ground and 
are silent; a mighty obelisk pointing forever towards the 
better country ; a land of Beulah, wdiere birds forever 
sing and flowers forever grow, skirting with its solemn 
warnings the shores of the silent river, and giviug per- 
petual glimpses of that heavenly city which forms its 
glowing horizon. 

Alone in the dim minster was one solitary figure, a 
man, to whom the whole outside "world of existence had 
become as a dream. He had forgotten the long toil of 
the cold, common-place, uneventful years; the poverty 
staring him forever in the face, the uncompromising 
landlady, the shabby lodgings; forgotten even the by- 
gone memories that at times came surging over his 
heart, as waves upon a sea-bound coast, casting up in 



380 WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 

their passage old plans and hopes and fears, and bear- 
ing them out to sea again, — out andawajfrom the shore 
they left desolate. 

Alone the man sat at the organ, filling the air with 
his gushes of harmony. He had forgotten it was winter 
without. Here in the autumn land, full of the colors 
that forests catch at the death of summer, he could not 
remember the outer dreariness. If he thought of it at 
all, his eyes wandered where a gleam of gold lay in 
shining ripples upon the altar, or where the warm, 
crimson of the chancel-window fell on the picture of the 
angelic choirs. Or again, glancing adown the silent 
naves, he saw the many colors of the windows playing 
at cross-purposes, or gliding in and out of the pews 
like voiceless worshippers. 

But the organist had serious business on hand. Ho 
was preparing the Christmas music, and even now wak- 
ing the organ into life and power with the full chords of 
an ancient carol. 

Soul, sense and feeling, all were absorbed in the 
sweetness of conscious power; the strength of the artist- 
soul that burned within him; the heart that throbbed and 
exulted as the heart of the great organ, too, seemed to 
throb and exult at the touch of his fingers. His master- 
spirit swayed, as it were, a whole world of feeling and 
fancy, thought and inspiration, melody and harmony. 
To his spiritual being came new, strange, beautiful 
thoughts of the God he worshipped in his earnest, soul- 
felt way; came exquisite revelations of the beauty and 
mystery of that ancient faith, to which he clung as most 
men cling to life. 

As he played and played the dark loft above him be- 
came as it were peopled with angels; he seemed to 
catch the shimmer of their wings, and to inhale the 



WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 381 

perfumes borne with them from tbat far-off country, the 
true Hesperides of the Christian soul, to which it is 
never a stranger. For there dwell his kindred in the 
flesh, no less than his kindred in the spirit, all of whom 
are but awaiting his coming in a land of endless sun- 
light, deathless bloom. Nor is he entirely bereft of 
their presence; they come to him, at times, when his 
soul, hard pressed, feels the fatigue of the fight so 
long since begun; they come with half-revealed intima- 
tions of a brightness which Avill dawn for him one day, 
or vague memories of some happy, holy past. Thus 
often, in moments of sadness or mirth, he catches the 
sheen of their new-found immortality, or hears low 
whispers from their spirit-life, which speak to him of 
hard-fought battles once their portion. That day these 
viewless messengers from the far-off heavenly city had 
been busy with the artist's soul. He felt them in the 
very air about him, in the emotions, too subtile for ex- 
pression, which thronged upon his heart and mind, 
bearing him backwards into the sunny air of childhood, 
or onward into the great unsolved mystery of the future. 
No prayer escaped his lips, but prayer went up from 
his strong, fervent soul, and found eloquent expression 
in the strains that came from the deep heart of the or- 
gan, a reflex of his own. He drifted on dreamily, paus- 
ing ever and anon to arrange the stops. After one of 
these intervals, he began to play the Christmas song of 
the Shepherds, which the choir was to sing on the festi- 
val day. His thoughts had flown very far away, indeed, 
when he was suddenly conscious of some one standing 
near. He turned his head and saw a young girl, who 
had evidently come up from the church, attracted by 
the music, and now stood at the head of the stairs, in- 
tently regarding him. Pastoris fiides! sang the many- 



382 WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 

voiced organ, as the artist's eyes fixed themselves 
upon the young girl, drawn, as it were, by some subtile 
attraction. He saw that she was young, that her cast 
of countenance was remarkably quiet, and even cold, 
but that her eyes had a peculiar glow about them, which 
seemed oddly enough at variance with the character of 
her face. He rose, at length, recovering himself, and 
spoke, asking her if he could serve her in any way. 
She replied, in a clear, cold voice, which also seemed 
curiously out of keeping with the expression of her eyes, 
explaining brieHy that she had accompanied some 
friends to visit the cathedral, and tempted by the sweet 
sounds, had come up. She added civilly that she re- 
gretted having disturbed him; but the musician paid no 
heed to her words. He stood before her with folded 
arms, studying her face with strange intentness. She, 
glancing at him, colored faintly, and had just made a 
movement as if to retire, when a step was heard on the 
stairs, and a young man appeared, who gave one quick, 
astonished glance at both, but said, in a pleasant, cheer- 
ful voice : 

''Why, Miss Warner, have you fallen on enchanted 
ground? We have been waiting for you below." 

She turned toward him and smiled. 

*'I am so sorry," she said simply, " but we will go 
now." 

"I fear our inopportune visit has disturbed you," 
said the young man, turning with easy good-breeding to 
the organist; "but I assure you it was a great pleasure 
to us, hearing you play." 

The musician merely bowed. 

"It was so like a dream," said the young girl, speak- 
ing in the same cold, quiet voice; "the dim church and 
the music, but I regret having disturbed you." 



WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 383 

Tlie musician muttered some Id distinct words, and 
the young girl, as slie passed down tlie stairs, bowed to 
iiim sliglitly. When they had gone, he set himself to 
trying various hymns or anthems for the Christmas time, 
but ever and anon his fingers wandered back to the old 
strain, Pastoris fiides. Once he even caught himself at 
the aria, "Now so Fair," and stopped abruptly. 

Whither had flown his holy, happy thoughts, his un- 
interrupted intercourse with a higher world ? Ah ! leaven 
of poor humanity, how your workings mar the perfect 
whole, and steal its perfection from that spiritual life, 
to which ardent poet-souls aspire! Hitherto, his after- 
noons or evenings at the organ had been one long sur- 
sum corda; the upward tendency of a mind too high and 
pure for earthly converse. Now, of the earth, earthy, 
he saw before him the quiet face, and dreamed again of 
the impassive voice, which, oddly enough, he could im- 
agine moved to passionate pity or tenderness, or even 
to the ardent accents of love. He slowly rose, closed 
the organ, said his evening prayer and went down into 
the church. All was still and silent, like a mighty for- 
est in the solemn night. The sanctuary lamp was burn- 
ing deep crimson. The quietude of the spot seemed 
intensified, and he almost fancied that through the 
gathering gloom, departed souls were hovering round 
the tabernacle, and at the close of a busy day, pros- 
trating themselves in adoiation upon the marble floor 
of the chancel, or gliding noislessly to and fro through 
the long naves. Silence and mystery inexpressible 
reigned supreme. He lingered a moment at the door, 
as if reluctant to leave the house of prayer, and caught 
by the light of the sanctuary lamp, the adoring gaze of 
the Archangel Michael fixed, as it were, upon the tab- 
erDacle. He passed out into the wintry street. The 



384 WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 

lamps were lighted; tbe snow-covered pavements were 
treacherous to the feet, and the night wind was cold 
and biting. Homewards the artist hastened. Home- 
wards ? To him home meant a two-story frame building, 
on the upper floor of which he rented a room. He went 
in, partook of the frugal supper placed before him, and 
passed up the rickety stairs, to dream wonderful, artist 
dreams; to wander in spirit through ancient cathedrals; 
to hear rushingharmonies on mighty organs, that thrilled 
and throbbed with feeling almost human, inspiration al- 
most divine. He filled the ambient air with the mysteri- 
ous people of his fancy, and forgot the gloom and loneli- 
ness, forgot the shabby clothes he Avore, and the endless 
struggle in which he was engaged. Ever and anon, he 
hummed the snatch of the Shepherds' Christmas song, 
and ever and anon, rose unbidden the girlish face which 
seemed forever to haunt his mind. 

The Christmas-time came round, and the long- 
expected midnight mass. At the Offertory all was still 
for a moment, then slowly the organist began the ac- 
companiment. The organ had a singular freak; it 
poured forth the anthem as if possessed of a human 
soul. A strange thrill ran through the people. The 
chorus of voices rang out with wonderful distinctness, 
Fastoris fiides. All eyes were turned towards the choir. 
Some whispering was observable amongst the multitude, 
and before the minds of many arose the whole grand 
panorama of the Announcement; the faithful shepherds 
wandering over Galilean hill-sides; the sudden glory 
breaking over the dark Judean mountains; the august 
presence of the heavenly visitor, in full panoply of 
flight, down-tending; the gates of the jasper-walled city 
ajar; the domes of the New Jerusalem shining golden 
through the dark ether, and the wondrous song of the 
angelic choir filling the immeasurable realms of space. 



WHAT A STBAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 385 

Fastoris fiides err antes! '* How beautiful!" murmured 
the listeoers, and the sound ceased; but when tlie mass 
was nearly at an end, the organist began, so soft and 
low that it seemed its distant echo, once more the Shep- 
herds' song. Mass was over, and the large and fash- 
ionable congregation streamed out, congratulating one 
another as they went, on the delightful music, all sound- 
ing "Merry Christmas !"in one another's ears, and all, 
even the poorest, hastening homewards to a joyful meet- 
ing at the Christmas-board. Slowly the organist came 
down the steps from the loft. He looked wistfully around 
him. No one shook him by the hand, nor cried "Merry 
Christmas!" to him, nor asked him to a place at some 
Christmas gathering. Suddenly his whole face changed. 
Passing out of the door of the main aisle, he saw the same 
girl who had appeared above the choir stairs. She 
was accompanied by the same good-looking, fashion- 
ably-dressed, well-bred young man, and a lady, an elderly 
lady, richly clad. Listening, with a smile, to some re- 
mark of her companion's, she never glanced at the 
organist, though he stood almost directly in her path. 
They drove off in a crimson-cushioned brougham, and 
the musician turned wearily away and sought his home. 
The landlady asked if he would oblige her by dining up 
stairs just for that day, as she wanted the room below 
for her friends. So up stairs his solitary meal was 
served. He had a little fire lighted in the grate, in honor 
of the day, and sat beside it, dreaming, all alone, all alone. 
When evening came he did not -venture to light a can- 
dle, but tried to forget that the low-burning fire sufficed 
only to make the darkness more dreary. !Por the artist 
had a debt to pay — a debt contracted by an idolized 
father, who had died broken-hearted, and left his son 
to redeem a once-honored name. Perhaps, when he 
25 



386 WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 

had vowed to pay it, even to the last farthiug, he had 
not considered the long, weary, woeful years of toil, 
of poverty, of trial which awaited him. Yet his daunt- 
less heart, still undismayed, bore the long burden pa- 
tiently and bravely, never uttering a complaint. Christ- 
mas visions thronged upon his mind; Christmases in 
winters long ago, Avhen the very name of the festival 
brought half -anticipated joys; when faces, long since 
departed from earth, were gathered beside the home- 
hearth; when voices, now silent forever, spoke to 
him in the never-forgotten language of affection; when 
hearts now stilled in death were warm with life; when 
hands, which ,he had seen folded beneath coflSn-lids, 
grasped his own in friendly greeting, and the Christmas 
was the golden meridian of the year. Tlius, mid dreams 
and visions the day came and weat, and once more the 
dull to-morrow. The musician was busy with some 
copying. In this way he usually filled his leisure mo- 
ments, and added somewhat to his slender income. He 
did not raise his head, but simply said, "Come in," 
when the landladv knocked at the door. She threw it 
open and announced, *'A gentleman to see you, sir." 
He turned in surprise, and saw the stranger who had 
accompanied the young lady to the church on both 
occasions. 

*'I must apologize for having taken this liberty,'' 
said the gentleman, " but the pastor of the cathedral 
gave me a card of introduction to you, and I was anx- 
ious to present it in person." 

The musician bowed somewhat stiffly, took the card 
from the stranger's hand, and asked him to be seated. 
As he took the offered chair the young man continued, 
in his pleasant, cheerful voice, "The fact is, Miss 
Warner and myself were so charmed with the music 



WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 387 

yesterday, that we botli felt desirous of renewing our 
acquaintance with you; the acquaintance commenced, 
as you may remember, some two weeks ago." 

This was so cordially said that the musician at once, 
replying in the same tone, referred briefly to the note 
of introduction, after which they drifted into a pleasant, 
desultory conversation, so that the afternoon was well 
spent when the stranger rose to depart. 

''Can you dine with us this week?" he asked, as he 
stood up; "any evening that suits you will answer." 

The musician hesitated. Could he dine at any house 
with his poor, shabby clothes, and no full dress suit? 
Besides, might not these people be merely tolerating 
him for his music's sake ? 

"I regret to say," he answered, after a pause, ''that I 
make it an invariable rule to accept no invitations to dine. 
Ton must not think me ungracious, but, in my circum- 
stances," he added, glancing, with a half smile, around 
the room, "I must forego all social enjoyment." 

"Mrs. Warner and her daughter were so anxious to 
meet you," said the stranger, "they were looking for- 
ward to it." 

A flush passed over the artist's face, quite unnoticed 
by his visitor. He was a good-looking, good-natured, 
inexpressibly well-bred man, and too thorough a gen- 
tleman not to recognize a kindred element in another. 
But emotion of any kind produced in the musician's 
mind at the mention of Miss Warner's name — Miss 
Warner, the wealthy and aristocratic — was totally out 
of his philosophy. And all the time the poor artist's 
thoughts were in a sad whirl. If it were humiliation to 
accept patronage at the hands of these people, what was 
humiliation to the new entrancing pleasure caused him 
by the mere thought of seeing Miss Warner again ? 



388 WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 

*'I cannot promise to dino Avitli you," lie said slowly, 
" but liow would it do if I were to come in after dinner?" 

"It will be a very great pleasure to us," said tlie 
other; " though I wish you would promise to dine with 
us." 

"I fear that it is impossible," answered the organist 
quietly; "but otherwise, I am at your service." 

"It is for you to name an evening," said the stranger. 

"Thursday will suit me best," replied the organist; 
'I am usually free then." 

"Thursday let it be," said the stranger; "remember 
we shall count on you. By the way, here is my card, 
with the address on it." 

They shook hands cordially at parting, and when the 
musician had seen his visitor down the rickety stairs, he 
returned, and taking up the card, read the name and 
address: "R. How^ard Winthrop, 85 Square." 

He saw at a glance that it Avas in one of the most 
fashionable localities, and again a flush passed over his 
face. More or less absent-minded was he at such re- 
hearsals as came between that day and the one ap- 
pointed. Time seemed fairly to creep; till at last about 
eight o'clock on Thursday evening, he set out. He had 
brushed his best suit with unusual care, and inked the 
seams where they began to show white. After mature 
deliberation, he had purchased half a dozen buttons, 
replacing those which were most conspicuously shabby. 
He had bought a new collar and cuffs, and even looked 
wistfully at his gloves, which were beginning to go at 
the thumbs. But he durst not venture on a new pair, 
and comforted himself with the thought that no one 
would notice. Alas! he scarcely realized how little, 
after a slight momentary surprise at the shabbiness 
of his appearance, among a room full of well-dressed 



WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 389 

people, any one thought of the matter at alh Miss 
Warner was very civil to him; but he was exceedingly 
constrained and awkward with her. To meet a gentle- 
man on easy terms never cost him a thought. Bat in 
the society of ladies he was totally lost. Almost since 
boyhood, he had lived out of the Avorld; poor and alone, 
and it was of little avail that he was the son of a gentle- 
man, and had passed the lower grades of a university 
before the crash came. Of course no one asked him 
to play, till in conversation with Miss Warner, he him- 
self offered to let her hear some favorite snatches of 
Mendelssohn. She was immensely pleased with the 
suggestion, and every one was charmed with his play- 
ing. He had not noticed anybody in particular, but 
had let his eyes stray at intervals to where Miss War- 
ner sat. He observed that her eyes — those strange, 
attractive eyes of hers — were bright and glowing, as 
she listened, and turned eagerly towards him when he 
had finished playing, and arisen from the instrument. 

Sometime after that he met her. She and her mother 
were spending the Avinter south, and he visited occa- 
sionally at their house, or at the Winthrops', where he 
was always a welcome guest. He never knew how it 
all came about; but one dark February afternoon, he 
was ushered into their drawing-room, and found Miss 
Warner alone. He remembered with curious distinct- 
ness each detail of the room. The curtains closely 
drawn, the fire on the hearth, and the polished and- 
irons; the Sevres clock on the mantel, the pictures on 
the walls, and even the basket of rare flowers with 
card attached, which stood upon a table. He remem- 
bered how he had told her, in a moment of infatuation, 
the whole story of his attraction towards her; the wild, 



390 WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 

hopeless attachment which had sprung up in his heart, 
the utter desolation of his life, and the poverty against 
which he was forever struggling. He remembered the 
precise expression of her face; the increased coldness 
of her thin, finely-curved mouth; the haughtiness of 
her demeanor, and the icy tone of her voice, as she 
swept past him, saying only: *' Are you mad?" When 
she reached the door, she paused with her hand upon che 
knob, looked back, and made him a mocking courtesy, 
saying, *' You will excuse me if I bid you a good after- 
noon." 

A dream and the awaking! He rose and left the 
house, went straight to the church, and played as he 
had never played before. Bitter and burning thoughts 
filled his heart — his brave, proud heart, humbled to its 
very core. But he had gradually grown calmer, and 
the folly of it all had been borne in upon his mind. 
The blow might have been dealt more gently, but after 
all, perhaps, it Avas kindest, for it crushed out hope so 
completely. Long afterwards, in thinking of it, a gleam 
of consolation came to him. Her eyes, those eyes which 
had first attracted him, had softened and glanced with 
a momentary light as she listened to his story, though 
the rest of her face had seemed so cold and impassive; 
nor did his fancy altogether deceive him. Months 
afterwards, when Adele Warner smiled on Bobert Win- 
tbrop's conventional and good-form wooing, she re- 
called with a strange thrill, the musician's love-making, 
and the sudden pallor on his face when she had turned 
to leave the room. She dwelt a little on the recollec- 
tion, as women will. For the poor musician had looked 
into her face with earnest, loyal eyes, and spoken hon- 
est, manly words, that came straight from his true . 
heart. Involuntarily she respected him, and a vague 



WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 391 

wish formed itself in her mind, that he had been Robert 
Winthrop, the son of the wealthy banker, for whom 
mothers had angled, and daughters had sighed, for 
many a weary season. Impatiently she thrust the no- 
tion aside. Had he not been absurdly presumptuous^ 
he, a poor musician? But she never forgot his wooing. 

The summer came and went. The long bright- 
ness of the summer's day fell over the hot and dusty 
city, and still one brave and patient heart toiled on. 
The musician never left his post, but labored and la- 
bored, and still in dim twilights sought the unfrequented 
church, and poured out his anthems of praise. Still his 
strong fervent sonl went up to heaven in mighty strains 
of music, upborne above all pain, and care, and toil, 
and sorrow of earth. Time had softened his pain and 
quieted his discontent. More than ever his heart turned 
to spiritual things, and he lived his true life only in the 
shadows of the great cathedral. 

As time went on a terrible calamity fell upon the city. 
Fever, like a plague, was mowing down men, as the 
reaper mows the grain. Over the beautiful city brooded 
Azrael, the death-angel, in solemn majesty, the shadow 
of his wings darkening the brightness of the summer's 
day, and casting their reflection over the face of heaven. 
Terror and confusion reigned supreme. Men fled as 
fly the trembling dwellers of the plain before the flowing 
lava. To the musician's soul came no affright. Above 
the darkness he saw the silver sheen of the angel's 
wings, and above his destroying sword the crown of 
immortality. Still he pursued his unruffled way, on 
quiet evenings, to and from the cathedral. For in its sol- 
emn shadows he forgot the terrible peril that menaced 
the fair city. One early autumn afternoon he went as 



392 WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 

usual to his place in the choir, and letting his hands 
wander at will over the keys, he struck a few bars of the 
old strain, Pastoris jildes. Present to his mind again 
were the Christmas-evergreens, the lights upon the 
altar, the voices of the choir, and above and beyond ail, 
the chil], December eve, when the girlish face appear- 
ing in the choir had first taken its hold upon his quiet 
life. Old love and tenderness awoke once more within 
his heart, and upwards went a cry to heaven for her 
safety amid the perils of the hour, and for strength that 
he might bear, uncomplaining, the loneliness that at 
times seemed to weigh more heavily upon his spirit. 
Patience, brave heart! Courage, tired worker! Peace, 
troubled soul! the hour is not yet. 

He rose, at length, and went down into the church to 
make his evening devotions. Some one was kneeling 
in one of the front pews. He did not observe who it 
was, but only that the figure knelt with bowed head, 
to all appearance wrapt in prayer. He took his place 
somewhat farther back, and thought no more of it, till 
he heard what seemed to be a sound as of weeping. 
This attracted his attention, and when suddenly the 
head was raised, he recognized Miss Warner. By a 
sudden impulse he approached her. 

*^Miss Warner," said he, in a troubled voice, " what 
is the cause of your grief ? Can I be of any service ?" 

She looked at him, and found something soothing 
and restful in his grave, earnest face. 

''Ah, it is 3'ou?" she said; " I heard you playing, but 
it all seemed a dream. I scarcely knew whether it was 
real or not." 

He saw that her eyes were red with weeping. His 
heart was full of pity and tenderness. 

"Tell me," he said, " what distresses you; is it the 
plague?" 



WHAT A STKAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 393 

''My God ! yes," she cried, with a fresh burst of weep- 
ing; " he has taken the fever. He will die, and I, — oh, 
my God, my God!" 

He wondered as he looked at her. Her face and voice 
were changed beyond recognition. No longer cold, 
quiet, impassive. 

**Mr. Winthrop is stricken, then?" he said. 

"And they will not let me go to him," she answered. 
" The}^ are hurrying me away. To-morrow I must leave 
the city." 

"But he is well cared for," said the musician, sooth- 
ingly. 

" Only by a hired nurse," said she, " who will probably 
desert him. He will be alone and will die." 

The musician looked at her with great compassion, 
yet, curiously enough, he spoke coldly and even sternly : 
"And if he should die,"he said, "what then? hundreds 
are dying every day." 

" Do think what it will be to me!" she retorted al- 
most fiercely; "but you, absorbed in your art, cannot 
dream — " 

She stopped abruptly. Was it the memory of a face 
grown suddenly white and despairing? The musician 
smiled. So she had never realized, he thought, what 
he had been capable of suffering, nor what he had 
suffered. She could think only of her own. But after 
all, sufi'ering was natural to him. It had been his very 
life; but she, this young, girlish creature, was tasting its 
first bitter draught. And he could pity her. 

" You do not understand," she began, with a piteous 
effort to speak calmly and rationally; "if he were to 
die without having any one near him, it would be so 
terrible; yet they will not let me go." 

A sudden thought struck the musician. He did not 



394 WHAT A STEAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 

speak for a moment, but turned toward the altar. The 
sanctuary lamp was burning deep red as ever. The colors 
of the chancel-window, subdued and mellowed, showed 
distinctly in its light. The adoring gaze of the arch- 
angel was still fixed upon the tabernacle, and his heav- 
enly legions following him in swift flight, seemed almost 
to live with human life and being. 

"Miss Warner," said the musician slowly, " would it 
relieve your mind if some one were to remain with Mr. 
Winthrop; I mean a friend who would not desert him ?" 

"But there is no one," she cried, "who would re- 
main with a fever-stricken patient." 

"I know of one person," he said, "who would be 
willing to do so." 

"But who? " she said incredulously, "a friend of Mr. 
Winthrop's?" 

"Yes," he replied, "I suppose he might be called a 
friend of Mr. Winthrop's." 

"Do not keep me in suspense," she pursued impa- 
tiently, " tell me who he is." 

"I mean myself," he added quietly; "I have no fear of 
the fever, and would be willing to serve a friend in that 
way." 

" Oh, if you would ! " she cried, her whole face bright- 
ening; " but are you not afraid? " 

"No," he said calmly. "But where is Mr. Win- 
throp ? " 

She gave him the number. He knew at once it was 
the house wherein he had spent that memorable even- 
ing. 

"I shall get ready to be there by nine to-night," he 
remarked, noting down the address. "I shall find 
some one to take my place here. And now, had you 
not better be going home?'^ 



WHAT A STKAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 395 

**Yes, I shall go now," she said, rising mechanically. 

When they had left the church, she cried impulsively: 
*' How can I ever thank you! It is such a noble thing 
so to risk your life." 

" An act of ordinary humanity;" said he, ''you must 
not look at in an exaggerated light. But," he added, 
' ' may I venture, Miss Warner, to consider you even for 
once as a friend." 

''Now and forever," she ejaculated warmly, "that 
best of all earthly possessions, a friend in need." 

"Yet," he went on with some bitterness, "it is not 
usual for people in different stations so to consider 
each other; however, for this once, I will take the priv- 
ilege of a friend and ask a favor." 

"What is the fa.vor?" she said eagerly? " What can 
I do for you? " 

"Simply this," he answered, " there is an old, long- 
standing debt of mine, the last payment of which comes 
due in two weeks from to-morrow. May I leave pro- 
vision for it in your hands, in case I should be taken 
ill, — or anything were to happen?" 

For the first time, the whole extent of his sacrifice 
flashed upon her mind; and it was for her sake he was 
risking his life. She seized both his hands in her agi- 
tation. 

" You must not do it," she said earnestly, " oh, how 
blind and selfish I have been ! " 

The touch of her hands thrilled him, and perhaps 
also sent a gleam of hope to his heart. Could it be 
that in any possible future she might forget the differ- 
ence in their stations ? His salary would henceforth be 
his own, and he was strong and young to work for her, 
as he had hitherto worked for his father's honor. But 
the flush of hope passed quickly away. He was free to 



396 WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 

sacrifice himself for lier, now that his task was done. 
Life had no very strong ties for him. Yet, with mo- 
mentary self-pity, he remembered his youth, and the 
possibilities of the future. Meanwhile she was earnestly 
seeking to dissuade him from his purpose; earnestly, 
yet with unconscious insincerity, fearing that her per- 
suasions might prevail. But no, ho was determined; 
and briefly referring to the favor he had already asked 
of her, continued : 

*'I am conscious that my request is a singular one; 
yet I have so many things on hand, that at tho moment 
I cannot think of any one else who would take this 
trouble for me.'' When they arrived at her residence, 
he wrote down some particulars as to the amount of 
the money and its destination, promised to send it to 
her early in the evening, and then nerved himself to 
say good-bye. 

'' When can we hear from you ? " she inquired. 

** Not for sometime, I fear," he answered, ''it would 
not be safe; but be assured as soon as possible you 
shall havG news of us." 

*'And when shall we meet again?" she asked. 

''God alone knows," he answered gravely; "in His 
hands the matter lies." 

**If you were to take the fever!" she said suddenly, 
with great horror in her voice. 

"I am young and strong, and will have a good chance 
of escaping it," he said, pitying her. 

" But if you should?" she persisted. 

**If I should," he replied, smiling, '*I could easily be 
spared; another organist can be found, and no one will 
miss me. — But lie is loved." 

The deep bitterness of his tone struck her. 

"How despairingly you talk!" she said, wonderingly. 
*' Have you no friends nor relations ? '" 



WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 397 

''Not one who could not easily spare me," lie said, 
still smiling. 

"You Lave one friend who will never forget you, 
never, never," she said earnestly. 

His face lighted up. Ho took her hand gently and 
humbly, thus mutely thanking her, with such love, sor- 
row and tenderness that her eyes filled with tears. 
Their parting was quiet and solemn, from the uncer- 
tainty of their meeting. When he left Miss "Warner 
the musician returned to the church again. It was 
almost dark. By the light of the sanctuary lamp he 
found his way to the railing, and there prostrated him- 
self. He prayed that the sacrifice might not be made 
purely for human love, but for divine. The shadow of 
Azrael's wings w^as on him; ho felt their touch; his soul 
was oppressed, and he could not look above, nor see 
the light through the darkness. He groped his way up 
the stairs and to the organ, throwing open a windov/ at 
the end of the choir, which let in a faint light from the 
street. His fingers swept the keys; he scarce knew 
what he played; burning thoughts, fervent prayers, ar- 
dent supplications, all burst forth as it were from the 
deep heart of the organ. Sfahat Mater! wailed the mu- 
sic; Pro peccatls! thundered the chords. It was one 
grand requiem; one long, last cry for mercy, for pardon; 
one final meditation upon the sorrows like unto which 
were no other sorrows. The organ was silent an instant; 
then uprose one final burst of harmony, straight from 
the artist's soul. The hour of bitterness was past. Te 
Deum laudamus! rang out upon the solemn air, re- 
echoed amongst the pillars, in the great dome, and 
onward and upward through the blu3, silent heavens 
unto the Throne, where all harmonies forever meet, in 
one grand choral of praise. The musician closed the 



39S WHAT A STEAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 

organ, and passed down tlie familiar steps and out into 
the darkness. Ho Lad left liis post forever. 

All Lis arrangements being made, Le entered upon 
Lis duties as nurse, at nine punctually. He found Rob- 
ert Wintlirop in a very low condition, and on the point 
of being deserted by the nurse, who refused to remain 
any longer. He took Lis place beside tLe bed, and 
never left it till, wLen Eobert WintLrop was convales- 
cing, Le Limself was stricken down. TLere was some- 
tLiiig terribly solemn and impressive in tLe two men 
being tlius left face to face witL deatli. From dawn 
until midnigLt tlie battle continued. But as WintLrop 
recovered, it became evident tliat Azrael Lad claimed 
anotlier victim — over tLe musician's Lead Lovered tLe 
crown tLat meant for Lim a brigLt immortality. TLe 
day came to wLicL, for long, patient years, tLe musician 
Lad looked forward. His fatlier's debt was paid. But 
Le lay unconscious of wLat would once Lave been so 
great a joy. TLe air witLout was Leavy witL a fatal 
Leaviness and sickening odor of tLe fell disease. No 
busy passers-by disturbed tLe dying man's repose. Still 
was now tLe great, Leaving city, as tLe dim catLedral 
wLerein tlie artist Lad been wont to dream away long, 
Lappy Lours. NigLt was coming on apace, and terror 
crept into Bobert WintLrop's soul, for Le saw tLe cLange 
in Lis companion's face, and knew tLat tLe Land of deatL 
was on Lim. One tLougLt entered into Lis mind. Still 
pale, wasted, worn witL disease, Le crept softly down 
and out into tLe silent street. TLe air cLilled Lim, but 
Lo Leeded it not. He passed deserted Louses, in many 
of wLicL Le Lad often found warm welcome. He met 
funeral biers unattended by a single mourner. He 
sliuddered. A feeling of Lorror stole over Lim. TLe 
ever-deepening quietude terrified Lim. Gladly Le 
reacLed Lis journey's end, and rang tLe bell of tLe 



WHAT A STRAIN OP MUSIC CAUSED. 399 

presbytery beside tlie cathedral. The priest opened 
the door himself. His servants had left him. Robert 
explained his mission, and paused, half fearing the priest 
would refuse to accompany him. 

"There is no time to be lost," said the priest calmly. 
Together, in silence, the two men now returned to the 
sufferer. He was unconscious. For nearly an hour 
the priest remained at the bedside, praying. At last 
he was rewarded. The patient recognized him. 

'^ Oh, Father! " he said joyfully, '^ I have had such a 
strange dream ! But now it is Christmas morning. I 
hear the choir. Listen," and he half raised himself, 
''listen to the Pastoris fides. ^'' 

The priest saw that his mind was wandering, and 
made no reply. 

*'The morning is about to dawn,^' said the musician, 
** or what is that light ? " 

*'The dawn of the Resurrection," murmured the priest; 
then, speaking in a loud, clear voice, he said, "Is there 
anything troubling your conscience ? " 

The voice seemed to arrest his attention for a moment, 
but only for a moment. 

" See," he said, trying to raise himself again, "see 
the expression on his face, the archangel, adoring his 
God. And the light — it must be the sanctuary lamp 
that makes his armor so resplendent." 

The priest saw that he was still delirious. 

"Father!" cried he, after a moment's silence, "the 
angels are filling the sanctuary. Michael is leading 
them, and they are singing with wonderful sweetness. 
Hark — Pastoris fides! " 

Again he was quiet for some time, and not a sound 
was heard in the room. Robert Winthrop stood by, in 
awe-stricken silence. The priest was reading the pray- 



400 WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 

ers for tlie dying. But at last the musician spoke 
again, in a Aveaker and more uncertain voice. 

"It is cold, yes," lie said, as if addressing some one, 
but no, tliank 3'ou, I will not have a fire." Then, chang- 
ing his tone: * 'Father, do not look so reproachful. It 
is almost paid — next Thursday — next Thursday. Oh, 
the light is dazzling! It hides the altar and the face of 
the archangel, and I cannot feel the notes — Fasioris 
fides — " 

His voice died away; he gave a convulsive start; his 
breathing grew heavy; his chest began to heave; his 
eyes turned far u^ in his head, and in the course of an 
hour the musician was dead. Dead, at the very time 
when his creditor was counting his latest receipt, and 
praising the honesty and singleness of purpose which 
had discharged in full his father's debt. 

By degrees the plague diminished. Azrael spread 
his wings and lied away, far over the dark blue heav- 
ens. The fair city, so long drooping under terrible 
woe, raised its head, and life began anew its ceaseless 
course upon which a benumbing hand had been laid. 
At Christmas time the cathedral was filled with wor- 
shippers, and as they streamed out into the frosty air, 
many paused to read a marble tablet, upon which in 
gilt letters was inscribed : 

Sacred to the Memory 

OF 

CONRAD MULLER, 

An Organist of the Cathedral, 

Who died a Martyr to Charity, 

Oct. 12, 18—. 

Bequiescat in Pace. 

A new organist was at the organ, but many remarked 
that the music was not what it used to be. The old 



WHAT A STRAIN OF MUSIC CAUSED. 401 

strain seemed to have been forgotten, and the Christmas 
song of the shepherds was only dimly remembered by 
some. 

So the musician was dead, and another had taken his 
place at the organ. Some dwellers in the neighborhood, 
knowing the legend of the place, declared that still at 
times in the solemn twilights, they heard the organ 
playing with unearthly sweetness, and the Christmas 
song of the shepherds, which the dead organist had so 
loved, again floating out over the square. It was but 
their fancy, for save at rehearsals, or on festival days, 
the organ stood cold and silent as the grave near by, 
wherein the dead musician slept. For he touched not 
again the keys, nor knelt before the chancel rail, whero 
he had been wont to lay the burden of each day. He 
recrossed no more the dark and silent river. He had 
met his kindred in the heavenly city, far over its turbid 
waters. But the red light of the sanctuary lamp still 
fell upon the adoring face of the archangel, and lingered 
upon his armor. So did it glow among all the lights 
upon the altar, when Robert Winthrop and Adele War- 
ner were wedded. But the musician slept pale and 
peaceful in the church-yard hard by, and saw it not. 



26 



4:02 YALE AND HARVABD DISAGREE. 



YALE AND HAEVARD DISAGREE. 

Yale College, New Haven, Conn. 
* * * In Whitney's Essentials of English Grammar, pages 57 and 
58, will be found the principles that meet the case, and decide the ques- 
tion submitted to me about the use of the apostrophe. I would state 
the principles thus: The possessive case was originally in the singular 
Rnd masculine, a contraction for Ids ; as John his book (John — 's book). 
If the name ended in s, it would make a hissing sound to attempt to 
pronounce two s's together; as Hopkins's book. Hence the rule: When- 
ever the noun ends in s, do not write an additional s with an apostro- 
phe between, but simply annex an apostrophe; thus, Hopkins' book. The 
Bame in case the noun is in the plural, and takes an s : the Societies' 
tights. Youth presents a diflSculty, because it is a collective noun, and 
therefore suggests the opinion that it should be treated as a plural end- 
ing in s; but it is to be treated as a singular, and it does not end in s. 
Therefore, the title of your institution should be written ' ' The Youth's 
pirectory. " It may be urged that we ought to distinguish between youth 
singular, as *'a youth," i.e., a young man; and youth collective, as "our 
youth," i.e., all our young people. This, however, is indicated by the 
connection, and cannot alter the rule about the s, which is founded on 
reason of easy utterance and euphony. Excuse very great haste. 

Truly yours, 

Noah Porter, President, 



Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 
* * * In reference to the question which you have submitted for 
my decision, I have no doubt that *'The Youths' Directory," as you now 
have it, is a correct name for your institution; "youths'" being the 
genitive plural of (a) youth. The phrase then means a directory for 
youths, or lads. " Youth's Directory, " without the article tlie, would 
also be correct in the sense of a directory for the collective body 
of youth, male and female; but this is not what you intend. The diffi- 
culty arises partly from the use of the genitive or possessive case, in- 
stead of the preposition /or. Your establishment, as I imderstand it, is 
a protectory for "boys." * * * 

Respectfully yours, 

Charles W. Eliot, President. 



THE LESSON FOR THE DAY. 403 

THE LESSON FOE THE DAY. 
By Mrs. Jessie Benton Fremont. 

It is very uncomfortable to feel all out of tune — not 
to be in harmony with what one has to do, but to feel 
rather that everything seems misplaced and jarring. 
So a day began to me lately, and what put me in accord 
I will tell: 

Maybe I had been put out by the return of snow after 
the soft April days had begun to give us rest, and relax 
the sense of stiffened resistance the long, stormy winter 
has given to most of us; maybe it was the disappoint- 
ment of a delay — that ** law's delay" which Shakespeare 
rated as cause for madness and contempt of life. 
Maybe it was even the mistake in time, that left no re- 
source but a train to the wrong side of the town and 
the old Thirtieth street station, which, always cheerless 
and dingy, has become quite hateful since we have' 
been used to the beauty and order of that on Forty- 
second street. We all know how a trifling sound star- 
tles one who is listening intently; and in the same way 
when one's strength is turned to enduring large things, 
there is no nerve left for trifles, so tliat we are some- 
times made ashamed by the undue influence they have 
on us. Anyway I was all out of tune, and took my 
place witli a sense of being unfairly aggrieved. 

It was a slow way-tram, with many stoppages, but 
only a few persons traveled about at that hour and in 
such weather. The snow fell so fast and thick that only 
the dark, flowing river bordering the track could be 
seen, and as there was nothing to refresh the eyes, the 
inner life came up the more clearly, and soon the last 
beads added to my rosary brought comforting thoughts 
and new strength. 



4:04 THE LESSON FOR THE DAY. 

My rosary can be used by all creeds, and is one 
among the good tlnugs money cannot buy. It is not to 
be made with hands. It has to be formed patiently 
and by unseen processes, as are precious gems: some 
beat of feeling, some torrent of emotion, and these crys- 
tallize into enduring form and beauty. 

Words are so poor, so narrow and colorless, that it 
is weary work to paint a feeling; impossible to make 
clear except through the instinct of sympathy, that 
finer essence of feeling which is to a fact as the perfume 
is to the flower. But whoever has felt the truth of the 
common expression, ** I would not give up my recol- 
lection of that for anything," knows what I mean, and 
has all ready loose beads for this rosary of memory : 
put them together, add to them, and turn to them in 
times of troubled mind, and find ** continual comfort" 
from their reminding, reviving influence. 
' In Spanish there are two verbs "to be." One, ser, 
is for the things that do not change — soy Jiombre. Estar 
is for the transient phases of being — estoy felix. We 
only say, equally : I am a man ; I am happy. 

" This old road of human life 
Is very roughly laid," 

and we need to beware of over-burdening ourselves for 
the march over it. Is it not best to keep the good and 
happy memories under ser, and let estar carry off the 
worries ? 

My last beads might have been of amber and topaz; 
soon they gave their own coloring even to the stormy 
day. 

Howl away, you north wind, and fall fast and sharp, 
you chilling snow! The tender lungs I have trembled 
for are safe in the sunshine country. You cannot reach 



THE LESSON FOR THE DAY. 405 

them here. ^ ^ "^ ^ This is a secoDcl Eden. I 
never cough now. I have no pain. I climbed the moun- 
tain and was not tired or out of breath. I Avas as hungry 
and slept as well as in the Tjrol-time. 

*^ 3Iei)i liehes land Tyrol T' and Guj's big voice seemed 
to be chanting that lament of Andreas Hofer. 

Was it only fancy, or was there a real voice speaking 
German near me ? Not a song out of my memory, but 
an actual low, sobbing, grieved voice ? 

I had been hearing it vaguely, fitting it unconsciously 
into the sounds from the train and the storm. But 
there it was in sad reality, — not the wail of the winds 
nor the throb of the engine, but the moan of a burdened 
heart. 

Just opposite to me was a group, who got in at 
Dobbs' Ferry. They w^ere slow in entering and seating 
themselves, and the door staying so long opened had let 
in a rush of sleety wind, which made me pull my furs 
closer and turn more and more away into the pleasant 
thoughts ''inside myself," as a young German friend 
puts it. So, until now, I had not noticed that it was a 
family in grief. 

Nearest, and on my side, were a little child and its 
3^oung nurse, and a healthy lad wdiose round face was 
awed into seriousness. Across the aisle the seats had 
been opened, and the four who sat there were so near, 
and once seen, so painfully interesting, that I could but 
choose to know of them. Their deep grief and simple 
sincerity of feeling isolated them as completely as though 
they were in an unoccupied place. 

A dark-haired, comely, middle-aged woman and a 
young man who resembled her enough to tell their rela- 
tionship, sat together; facing them, Avere a thin-featured, 
blue-eyed young man of the German tj'pe, and the slight, 
bending figure of a young woman, evidently his sister. 



4:06 THE LESSON FOR THE DAY. 

Tliey were of the large class that Lave neither time nor 
money to give to outward expressions of grief. Death 
is to them not only the dreadful certainty of separation, 
but, where it takes the head of the family, the certain 
loss of support also; and a demand for sub-division of 
already scanty means among those left helpless and for 
the time dependent. Soon must come the blessed pro- 
vision of work, which brings numbness, if not healing. 
If only work can be had ! Meantime, the day taken 
from work, the fresh but very humble mourning clothes, 
the tired eyelids and sunken eyes of the fair-haired man, 
with his set face — a fine, good face, — told they had been 
parting from their dead. They talked in German, and 
their voices were low from emotion , and tired and heavy 
soundiug: the two men and the mother were evidently 
settling something that could not be delayed. I do not 
know German, but their voices were like themselves, 
sincere, and expressed each feeling as well as tone- 
music, and I could gather that some decision had to be 
made at once, and they were talking it over, with many 
a stop for tears. It was the dark-haired young man 
whose deep sobs I had heard; — I inferred he was a 
brother of the one they mourned for, as the other was 
evidently brother to the fair-haired little widow. The 
men had put a band of crape on their Sunday hats and 
wore their best clothes, of the warmer blues and browns 
that subside into our gloomy black as their countrymen 
become absorbed into our colorless national life; but 
just as they were, mismatched and homely gear, the 
loveliness of family affection and upright, truthful fam- 
ily care and protection, made them unconscious subjects 
of sympathy and respect to the whole car-full of 
passengers. 

Even the conductor, a cheery young man, looked 
troubled, and went softly about his ticket-taking; and 



THE LESSON EOR THE DAY.- 407 

the brakeman, coming iu from out the storm, as the 
sobs met his ear, slipped out again. A gentleman be- 
hind me folded his newspaper and crossed to the next 
car, gently, as one leaves church during service. Ah! 
I thought, these rough times have given you more trouble 
than you can carry, perhaps — it will not do to add weight, 
or lose heart by the day's experience. 

They were all subdued, but the silent one of the four 
was the little woman. She was all drooped and fallen 
in, as it were. She sat by the window, neither looking 
out nor seeing anything near. Her eyes had that 
strained effect of looking after what has gone beyond 
sight, and though the rest wept often, her face remained 
hushed and still; only some big tear-drops rolling from 
the lids and falling, bright, against her black vail. At 
one time her head fell forward, and I thought she had 
fainted. Her brother put his arm about her, and her 
head rested on his shoulder, and I saw she slept. All 
the watching was over now. : 

As the train stopped at Yonkers, and other sounds 
abated, this woman's voice was heard for the only 
time. Without any understanding of the words, it 
was easy to know she was saying that she did not 
care — that something they referred to was not worth 
while, that it was not wanted by her. The voice was 
naturally a clear-throat voice — soft and low. Now it was 
so full of dead, tired lonesomeness that no recitative I 
ever heard approached its power of expression; and the 
little German I know gave me the full force of the pa- 
thetic words with which she stopped speaking, — AUes ist 
gegaiigen — repeating them again as echo to herself — • 
cdles ist gegaiigen, — all is over — ended — done! There 
was no going back now to the rose-colored memories. 
They had done their gentle office of resting and calm- 
ing, and now came the work of the day; and this chance- 



408 THE LESSON FOR THE DAY. 

meeting with a real loss had brought also the lesson for 
the day. Suddenly I had realized the nothingness of 
all other possessions compared to an unbroken home. 

''Stone Avails do not a prison make," nor can the 
most beautiful walls of man's building create a /iorne, — • 
only a "house, a dwelling-place, a habitation." The 
home is like Burns' honest man, "above his might," 
although he be King, or money which is so often King. 

I had had the privilege of one of those clear looks 
into life which leave one freed and lifted, and the blind 
gods we have fashioned for ourselves, Fortune and 
Justice, sank to their proper level among other human 
circumstance. My lesson was accepted, leaving me 
grateful that so little was required of me. 

I wished to have said a little word of sympathy to the 
benumbed little woman, but we are always shy of what 
is natural and good, and besides, how to do so without 
any words at command ? For the hundredth time I was 
self-reproached for neglecting to study German. I 
could only recall bits of songs, of travelers' phrases, of 
political and war expressions, — misfits, all. 

For once the old station was welcome. Letting the 
crowd pass out, I followed across the now empty wait- 
ing-room, where I saw again part of this family group. 
The elder woman Avas sitting aside, busied Avith the 
tired child that was fretting, but the little widow, 
quite alone, had advanced towards the ticket-stand, 
Avhere she stopped, AA^avering as though about to fall. 
I went to her and took her hand, and some Avay German 
Avords did come to me. She looked at me an instant, 
and answered, showing she knew Avhat I meant; when 
her hand tightened, her eyes stared forAvard, and she 
Avinced and shivered as she looked doAvn the long room 
towards some men moving slowly together. 

"Hold her back, madam," said a man at the door, 
"they are bringing it out " 



A FLIGHT WITH ARIEL. 409 



A FLIGHT WITH AEIEL. 

By Albert Pike. 

I HAD a dream: Methouglit Ariel came, 

And bade me follow him; and I arose; 
Lighter my body seemed than subtile flame, 

Or than the invisible -wind that always blows 
Above the clouds. So upward I did aim, 

"With quick flight, as the sky-lark sunward goes. 
Led by the splendor of Ariel's wing. 
Whose snowy light before fled, glittering. 

So, floating upward through the roseate air. 
And through the wide interstices of cloud. 

We climbed the mist-hills, till we halted, where 
The frowning peaks beneath the azure glowed; 

Then gazed I all around; no sun blazed there, 
But crimson light through the pure ether flowed. 

And dimmed the moon's eye and the stars' white cones. 

Till they were scarce seen on their golden thrones. 

Awhile we trod along the shivering peaks 

Of foaming cloud; over entangled rifts 
Of purple light; through crimson-misted breaks; 

And saw blue lightning crouching in white drifts, 
Kestless and quivering, while the broad, deep lakes 

Of vapor tremble as he stirs and shifts. 
Waked by the diapason of the thunder. 
That swells upon the wild wind rushing under. 

And moored within a labyrinthine bay 

Girded by massive foam-cliffs, rough, storm-worn, 
On a flat shore of leaden vapor, lay 

A boat carved out of orange mist, which morn 
Had hardened into crystal, many a day, 



410 A FLIGHT WITH ARIEL. 

Deep in a rift in a vast glacier torn: 
"We stepped on board, we loosed ber from the bank, 
Our thirsty sail, spread wide, the breezes drank. 

And swiftly then our winged bark flew on, 

While I sat looking downward from the prow; 

Down broad, shade-margined rivers, dark and dun. 
Over smooth lakes, sea-green, with golden glow, 

riecked with broad black spots, here and there, upon 
Their mirrored surface : now we float below 

Like a fleet shadow, over the vex'd breast 

Of boundless, billowy oceans of white mist, 

Then rushed we into chasms, deep, wide and black. 
By huge, bleak, stormy mountains, of the foam 

And rolling masses of the thunder-rack; 
Dark, quivering precipices of deep gloom, 

Aeries of brooding lightning; and did tack 

In narrow inlets, through which roared the boom 

Of the mad wind; wherein did thunder dream, 

And on the far blue waves his lightnings gleam. 

And then we issued to the open vast 

Of cloudless air above; and while the sail 

Its silver shade upon my forehead cast, 

Like lightning or swift thought, before the gale 

Fled our bright bark. Strange wonders there we passed, 
Currents of astral light, cold, thin and pale. 

Strange, voiceless birds that never sink to earth, 

And troops of fairies dancing in mad mirth. 

Then we descended, till our barque did float 
Above the peak of one lone mountain; and 

Ariel furled the sail, and moored our boat 
Upon the margin of a narrow strand 

Of undulating mist, that from remote 

And dangerous seas had come, o'er many a land — 



A FLIGHT WITH ARIEL. 411 

An amaranthine effluence of ocean, 
Changing forever with eternal motion. 

Then, bending from the helm, Ariel gazed 

With keen eyes downward through the mighty vast, 

And waved his hand. The 2)iles of mist upraised. 
That on the mountain's lofty crown were massed; 

And, gazing earthward, eager and amazed, 

While either way the rent clouds slowly passed, 

I saw a mighty palace> reared upon 

The grey, scarred summit of that towering cone. 

Columns of gold, with emerald inwrought, 

Huby and jasper, and infoliate 
With leaves of silver, intricate as thought; 

Statues of gold, intercolumniate; 
Great altars, fed with costly odors, bought 

With toil and blood, and round the rude doors wait 
Large hosts of slaves, bending the patient knee. 
As though they lingered there some King to see. 

" Here," said Ariel, *' liveth Tyranny, 
Remorseless reveller in war and blood, ; 

And these that humbly bend the supple knee,-— 

Within whose inmost heart-cells ever brood 
Hatred, despair, chill fear and misery, 

Peo2:)ling with terrors the sad solitude, — 
These are his slaves. They bow there, night and day, 
And costly homage to his altars pay. 

" And now, behold! forth from his broad gates ride 
His kindred fiends, the tools of his fierce ire. 

Your glorious republic to divide. 

Friend against friend, the son against the sire, 

And near their graves who for your freedom died, 
Slay with the sword and devastate with fire : 

And I have brought thee here, that thou mayest tell 

Thy countrymen to shun that purple Hell." 



412 A FLIGHT WITH AEIEL. 

Then, with a roar like thunder, open flew 

The brazen gates, and all the mountain shivered 

And trembled like a child ; and far off, through 
The distant hills, against the grey rocks echoed 

That awful sound; and a wild voice that grew 
A terror to me, surging upward, delivered, 

In tones that like a brazen trumpet roared, 

The order for the march : — Eorth came the horde ! 

First came Ambition, with his discous eye, 
And tiger-spring, and hot and eager speed. 

Flushed cheek, imperious glance, demeanor high, — 
He in. the portal striding his black steed. 

Stained fetlock-deep with red blood not yet dry. 
And flecked with foam did the wild cohort lead, 

Down the rough mountain, heedless of the crowd 

Of slaves that round the altar-steps yet bowed. 

Next came red Rashness, with his restless step, 

In whose large eyes glowed the fierce fire that boiled 

In his broad chest. Large gouts of blood did drip 
From his drawn sword : the trembling slaves recoiled : 

Scorn and fierce passion curled his writhing lip; 

His dress was torn with furious haste, and soiled; — • 

So, springing on his reeking steed, he shook 

The reins, and downward his swift journey took. 

Then came dark Disappointment, with the foam 
Of rage upon his lips, sad step and slow. 

Stern, wrinkled brow, clenched teeth, and heavy gloom, 
Like a shadow on his ej^es,— in these a glow 

Like that of baleful stars within a tomb; 
His tangled locks left in the wind to blow; 

And so did he forth from the palace stride, 

And stalk away down the steep mountain-side. 

Next followed Envy, with deep-sunken eye. 
Glaring upon his mates. He beat his breast. 



A FLIGHT WITH ARIEL. 413 

And gnaslied his teetli, with many a bitter sigh; 

For in his heart, deep in its core, a nest 
Of fiery scorpions gnawed, that never die, 

"Writhing and stinging ever; on he pressed, 
Mounted upon a pale and hound-eyed steed, 
And down the mountain snarling did proceed. 

And then old Avarice, tottering out, appeared. 
With wrinkled front and gray and matted hair, 

And elfish eyes, blue-circled, small and bleared; 
He slowly walked, with cautious, prying air, 

Working his lips under his filthy beard, 

Peering upon the ground with searching eye, 

Clutching a purse with yellow wasted hand. 

And so he followed the descending band. 

Then came Corruption, with his serpent tongue, 
Quick, hurried gait, and eye astute, yet bold; 

And while, amid the crouching, base, bowed throng 
Of suppliant slaves, he did his quick way hold. 

He loudly hurried Avarice along, 

Who crawled before him with his bag of gold; 

Bestriding then his rich-apparelled steed. 

He followed swiftly where his mates did lead. 

Next, dark Fanaticism, his haggard face 
Flushing with holy anger, down the track 

Went, loud bewailing that the good old days 
Of fire and faggot had not yet come back. 

When error was a crime, and to the ways 
Of truth men were persuaded by the rack; 

On either side, a little in advance. 

Bigotry rode, and harsh Intolerance. 

Hypocrisy came next, prim, starched and staid. 
With folded hands and upturned pious eyes. 
As though God's law he punctually obeyed; 



414: A FLIGHT WITH ARIEL. 

His sordid greed seeks its base end by lies; 
He lusts for every ripe, voluptuous roaid, 

Then wrings his hands, and i^rays, and loudly cries, 
" Owner of men! stand off, afar, while I, 
*' Holier than thou art, piously pass by!" 

And next came Treason, with his blood-stained hand. 
Deep, black, fierce eye, and bold, unquailing air; 

"While even as he passed his hot breath fanned 
The groveling slaves into rebellion there; 

His armor clashed, and his broad battle-brand 
Did in the purple sheen like lightning glare; 

And so his fiery courser he bestrode. 

The echo of whose hoofs roared down the road. 

Last came King Anarchy. His cold eyes flashed 
With red fire blazing up from Hell's abyss; 

His large white wolf-teeth angrily he gnashed, 

* His blue lips parted like a tigress's; 

His dusky destrier was with foam besplashed, 
And fiery serpents did around him hiss, 

"Writhing amid his war-steed's misty mane. 

Whose hoofs the young grass scorched like fiery rain. 

As he rode down, there mustered in the rear 
A hideous flock, some few in human form. 

Some shapeless. Here came crouching by, pale Fear, 
Eevenge and Wrath, and Kapine, a base swarm; 

And Cruelty and Murder, and their peer. 
Red Persecution, pouring a hot storm 

Of fire and blood from his relentless hand; 

All these are under Anarchy's command. 

When the horde passed below the mountain's brow. 
With clashing hoof, mad turmoil and loud din, 

Within the hall there rose a wild halloo. 
As though a thousand fiends rejoiced therein; 



A FLIGHT WITH ARIEL. 415 

The upper air vibrated it unto, 

The currents trembled of its crimson sheen; 
The lightning-lofts were shaken; and our boat 
Kocked on the strand where the harsh echo smote. 

Then did Ariel lift the snowy sail, 

Of our ethereal barque. The helm he took. 

And up behind us sprang a gentle gale, 

Murmuring astern, like a sweet summer-brook, 

That broad-leaved water-plants from daylight veil; 
And, while the sail a snowy brightness shook 

Upon the prow, I lay and watched the boat, 

Steered by Ariel, on its voyage float. 

Then, passing swiftly, with a favoring gale, 

Eound the gre}^ forehead of the storm-scarred hill, 

"We did descend. Near us the moonlight pale 
Slept in thick masses, soberly and still. 

In the deep nooks of many a purple vale, 
Of frosted mist; and down a ringing rill 

Of sunlight, flowing past a lofty bank 

Of amber cloud, toward the green earth we sank. 

And then we passed by mountain-nourished rivers, 
Yexed to white foam by rocks their sides that galled; 

Near hoary crags, by lightning split to shivers, 
Peopled by nervous eagles, grey and bald; 

Forests wherein the wind-wave always quivers, 
Shaking their deep hearts green as emerald; 

Lakes that, like woman's bosom, panting, swell, 

Bobed with the living foam of asphodel. 

"Within the shadow of old crumbling columns, 
Along these lakes we sailed, and saw beneath 

Great water-snakes rolling their scaly volumes 
Among the water-vines that there did wreathe;/ 

Through chasms of j)urple gloom, with rivers solemn 



416 A FLIGHT WITH ARIEL. 

Moaning between their jagged, rocky teetli; 
And then again above the earth we lifted, 
And lowered the sail, and helmlessly there drifted. 

Below us, stretching from the broad green sea 
Unto the prairies, did a fair land lie. 

Studded with lakes as still as porphyry, 
And blue hills sleeping in the bluer sky, 

From whose white cones' serene sublimity 
The snowy lightning dazzled the sun's eye; 

The amethystine rivers thence rolled down 

To fling their foam on ocean's hoary crown. 

Great cities, queen-like, stood upon his shore. 
And on the banks of those majestic rivers. 

And near broad lakes, where at the awful roar 
Of one great cataract the stunned earth shivers; 

Ships went and came in squadrons, flocking o'er 
That ocean which the Old and New "World severs. 

Shading the bays and rivers with their sails. 

Their starred flags laughing at propitious gales. 

Broad fields spread inland, robed in green and gold. 
And waving with a mighty wealth of grain, 

From where the bear snarled at the arctic cold. 
To the Mexic Gulf, and the Pacific Main; 

Far South, in snowy undulations, rolled, 

With their white harvests many a treeless plain; 

And where the Sierra westwardly inclines. 

Gleamed a new Ophir, with its glittering mines. ; 

The Throne of Liberty stood in that land. 
Its guards the Law and Constitution; these, 

These and no other held supreme command. 

And everywhere, through all the land, was peace. 

Grim Despotism fast in his iron hand 

Held all men's rights in the ancient monarchies; 



A FLIGHT WITH ARIEL. 417 

But Freedom reigned here undisturbed and calm, 
Holding an eagle on her snowy palm. 

Then, as I gazed, it seemed men's hearts became 
Transparent to me as the crimsoned air. 

Or as the thin sheet of a subtile flame; 
And I could see the Passions working there 

Like restless serpents; how they went and came, 
And writhed or slept within their fiery lair; 

So that I saw the cause of each vibration 

That shook the heart-strings of that youthful nation. 

I watched the souls of all that people, when 
That train of fiends did thitherward repair; 

I saw old creeping Avarice crouch therein. 
Like a caged panther; and his grizzled hair 

Choked up the springs of Virtue, so that men 
"Were proud the Devil's livery to wear. 

And did begin to count and calculate 

That Union's value which had made them great. 

I saw red Rashness and Ambition urge 
Men to ill deeds for office; with a wing 

Like the free eagle's, lo! they swift emerge 

From the dens and caves of earth, and upward spring, 

"With dariDg flight; but like the baffled surge. 
That doth against a rock its masses fling, 

They are repelled; some great, calm, kingly eye 

Withers their plumes; a little while they fly, 

And then, still striving with their shriveled wings. 
Drop on the earth, and in each cankered soul 

Pale Disappointment crouches. Envy clings, 

Rage, Hate, Despair, at the sweet sunlight scowl, 

Revenge and fiery Anger dart their stings 
Into themselves, and with sharp pain howl; 

Then forth these patriots go, a motley brood, 

And preach sedition to the multitude. 
27 



418 A FLIGHT WITH AKIEL. 

Then Faction and the Lust for office shook 

Their filthy wings over the whole land, lighting 

On hill and plain, by river, lake and brook 
The fires of discord and new hates exciting; 

And lean Corruption sneaked in every nook, 
"With Avarice's hoards to crime inviting ; 

Till men no longer saw that glittering Star, 

The Constitution, shining from afar. 

Fanaticism joreached a new crusade, 

And Bigotry scorned slavery as a crime; 

Intolerance, brandishing his murderous blade. 

Denounced the Southron in bad prose and rhyme; 

The Pulpit preached rebellion; men, dismayed, 
Saw the red portents of a bloody time 

Burn ominous upon the northern sky. 

And sword-like comets, threatening, blaze on high. 

Treason, without disguise, all clad in mail, 
Stalked boldly over the distracted land; 

Cries of Disunion swelled on every gale; 

The Ship of State drew near the rocky strand, 

"With rent sails, through the lightning and the hail, 
Her mariners a reckless, drunken band; 

And Freedom, shuddering, closed her eyes, and left 

Their vessel on the weltering seas to drift. 

Then Anarchy turned loose his maddened steed. 
Whose iron hoofs went clangiDg through the land, 

Filling men^s hearts with fear and shapeless dread; 
Then leaped on board, and with audacious hand. 

Grasped he the helm, and turned the vessel's head 
Toward unknown seas, and, at his fierce command, 

Through the red foam and howling waves, the dark, 

lU-visaged mariners to ruin sailed the barque. 

I shuddered for a time, and looked again, 
"Watching the day of that eventful dawn; 



A FLIGHT WITH AKIEL. 4.19 

Wild war has broken bis adamantine cbain, 
Bestrid tbe steed of Anarcb}', and drawn 

His bloody scimetar; a fiery rain 

Of blood j)ouredon tbe land, and scorcbed tbe corn. 

"Wild sbouts, mad cries, and frequent trumpets rang, 

And iron boofs tbundered witb constant clang. 

I saw and beard no more, for I did faint, 
And would bave fallen to tbe eartb, bad not 

Ariel stooped and caugbt me as I went. 

He raised tbe sail, and left tbat fearful spot; 

And wbile into tbe soft, cool air I leant, 

Drinking tbe wind tbat followed tbe swift boat, 

He said to me, witb gentle voice and clear, 

Kinging like tones seolian in m}^ ear: 

*' Tbou bast not seen tbe woes tbat are to come, 
Tbe long, dark days, tbat lengtben into yearLJ, 

Tbe reign of rapine, wben tbe laws are dumb, 

Tbe bloody fields, tbe beartb-stones wet witb tears; 

Tbe starving cbildreD, wrangling for a crumb, 
Tbe cries of ravisbed maidens, tbat God bears. 

And does not beed, tbe blackened walls tbat stand 

Amid tbe graves, tbrougb all tbe wasted land. 

" Go, tell your misled people tbe sad fate, 

Tbe bitter woes and sbarp calamities, 
Tbat in tbe swiftly-coming future wait; 

The fruit of Faction's sordid villainies. 
Of discord and dissension, greed and bate, 

And all tbat in man base and brutal is; 
Unless tbey guard, witb sleejoless vigilance, 
Tbeir liberties a^'ainst sucb dire miscbance." 



"O" 



He said no more; meanwbile w-e kept along 

Tbe elemental greenness of tbe ocean, 
Wbose great breast rose and trembled witb tbe strong 



420 A FLIGHT WITH AEIEL. 

Stern pulses of its vibratory motion; 
Across still bays, 'mid many a tangled tlirong* 

Of misty isles, sleeping like sweet devotion 
In woman's heart, bordered with low white shores, 
Bunning off inland with green level floors. 

We saw gray water-plants that fanned the deep, 
"With golden hair, far down beneath the boat; 

Caverns, shell-paved, where the Naiads sleep; 
Clouds of thick light in the great vast that float; 

Great emerald-rifts, wherein the ripples keep 
A constant murmur of seolic notes; 

Broad beds of coral, rosy as the dawn, 

The radiant sea-flowers thick on many a lawn. 

And then we left the boat, and quick descended, 
Through the clear air, as we had first arisen, 

Unto my home, wherein I found extended 

That which again became my sad soul's prison. 

Then with a brief adieu he upward wended. 

While far behind long lines of light did glisten; 

Leaving me meditating on my dream. 

Which still like deep and dark reality doth seem. 



A DIAMOND IN THE BOUGH. 421 



A DIAMOND IN THE EOUGH. 

By Fkancis S. Smith. 

A GAUNT, ragged urcliin was parentless Ben, 

"With uncover'd head and bare feet; 
None knew his real age but it seem'd about ten. 

And his only abode was the street. 
As a Tagabond waif he was everywhere known — 

Mischievous, quick-witted and bright — 
Contented by day with a crust and a bone. 

And a bed in a coal-box at night. 

Ben needed refinement and polish, of course, 

And he was not extensively read : 
I fear the professors would hardly indorse 

The college in which he was bred. 
Fine ethics were not of his studies a part. 

He had ne'er heard of sacred song, 
But a certain instructor down deep in his heart. 

Had taui^ht him the ri^ht from the wron"'. 

O O D 

So bravely he battled his numberless woes. 

With the meager light which he possessed. 
As much like a soldier of honor as those 

"With greater encouragement blessed. 
The ill-luck that followed him many a time. 

Had caused him sharp hunger to feel; 
But still he presented a bold front to crime^ 

He might suffer but never would steal. 

One day while poor Ben was at play in the street, 

A rich man drove carelessly by, 
And the wheels of his vehicle crushed the waif's feet, 

Ere he from the roadway could fly. 



422 A DIAMOND IN THE EOUGH. 

A curse the proud millionaire hurled at the lad, 
And then in a brutal tone said: 
^'"Why should such poor devils exist? I'd be giad 
If all the low creatures were dead ! " 

Ten 3'ears rolled away, and the waif had become 

A sailor, warm-hearted and brave; 
He had made the wild, wide-spreading ocean his home, 

And rejoiced in a life on the wave. 
He was stalwart and strong as a hardy 3'oung oak, 

To his country and friends he was true; 
He would melt at a sad tale or laugh at a joke, 

And was loved by both captain and crew. 

His ship was the " Greyhound," — a clipper-built craft; 

In her he had sailed the world 'round; 
She was fleet as the wind, and was trim fore and aft, 

And every timber was sound. 
Ben loved the staunch bark, and wdth face all aglow, 

As she flew like a bird o'er the sea, 
In storm or in sunshine, "blow high or blow low," 

No mortal was prouder than he. 

A bright little fellow, — a passenger's child — 

Had captured the hearts of the men; 
His ringlets were golden, his eyes blue and mild. 

And he was an idol with Ben. 
He would play 'round deck when the weather was clear, 

And shout in his innocent glee; 
• And sometimes would climb to the rail without fear. 

To gaze on the turbulent sea. 

Well, it happened one morning when Ben was aloft, 

And the child on the deck was alone, 
He attempted the feat he had j^racticed so oft, 

And into the wild waves was thrown. 



A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH. 423 

Beu beard the boy's scream of despair from bis perch, 

And a loud cry of horror be gave, 
As be crawl'd o'er the yard, while the ship gave a lurch, 

And boldly plunged into the wave. 

Amid the crazed throng that soon crowded the deck, 

An invalid passenger stood; 
He had flown from his sick-bed while scarcely awake. 

And terror seemed freezing his blood. 
His tremulous lips with life-crimson were dyed, 

And frenzy was in his dark eye; 
"With clasped hands upraised, be in agony cried, 
*' Oh! God, must my darling' boy die ? " 

A moment of dreadful susj^ense, but at last 

The sailor so stalwart and brave, 
With the precious boy to his bold bosom held fast. 
Appeared on the crest of a wave. 
" Hurrah! He is saved! " breaks from every lip, 

And then with a hearty accord, 
*' Three cheers for the hero! " goes up from the ship 
As the rescued are hoisted on board. 

The invalid father embraces his boy. 

And hugs him again and again; 
And then in the midst of his outgushing joy, 

He turns from the child to thank Ben. 
Ben read the man's countenance o'er and o'er. 

Then mutter'd, " How strangely we meet! 
Excuse me, your honor, I've seen you before. 

You're the man that ran over my feet! 

" I was very poor then, a rough boy of the town. 
With no shelter to cover my head; 
You didn't, of course, with intent run me down, 
But you wished all j)Oor devils were dead. 



424 A DIAMOND IN THE BOUGH. 

If your wish had been granted, your honor, that day"- 
And here the tar quietly smiled, — 
" And I had been placed under hatches to stay, 
Where now would have been your sweet child ? 

*' I cherish no malice, your honor, oh, no! 

So give me a shake of your fin: 
I've done but a true sailor's duty I know, 

And I'm willing to do it again. 
But the truth is, your honor, now make no mistake, 

That while on life's ocean we sail. 
The meanest and poorest landlubber on deck, 

May be of some use in a gale." 



Univee,sity College, London. 

^ '^ ^ The reports and circulars which I have re- 
ceived from the Youths' Directoky, indicate what zeal, 
energy, and perseverance under difficulties, have achieved 
in the cause of neglected children on the distant shores 
of the Pacific Ocean. Permit me to say that now, more 
than ever, is it necessary to train boys, and therefore 
those under your charge, to live in God and for God, 
and thus realize '^Lahorare est Orare.'^ 

Believe me, faithfully yours, 

MoNsiGNOE, Thomas J. Capel. 



■^16 -^ 



716 



V -» 



'/ c- 



^. 



^%- 



A 



S* <> 



"*-, 



-^' 

V 



A^'' 



^^ v^ 



" -^. 



"c^. 



^. 



